Riffs and Rifts: A Book Review of Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Billy was the dreamer. Daisy was the raw talent. Together they formed the greatest, fictional American rock band to ever record an album. Astonishing music and stellar stage performance grows in the rocky, weedy soil of turmoil, strife, and pain. And we all love to watch our stars twinkle and diminish in the sky far away. Think Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, or Van Halen.
Daisy Jones & The Six is an up close look at the rock band’s prime years. A recent release that draws people into an era not too far removed from American memory. Author Taylor Jenkins Reid memorializes the glamorous, albeit catastrophic history of 70s and 80s rock bands through a unique, fictious oral history.
Reid’s novel is written in The Office-esque, roundtable interview style. Readers get a behind the scenes vantage point from every members’ hindsight. Reid expressed in an interview with The Rolling Stones, “I wanted you to feel immersed in it, and not like you were reading fiction, but like you were there.”
Band members Billy and Graham, brothers and original founders, narrate the course of the band’s history. Female artists Karen and Daisy fill in cultural context and emotional impact. Pete, Eddie, and Warren shade in the lines, but never add much more than the reader could decipher themselves.
The pace of the book matches a classic rock song complete with clashing snare, guitar riffs of band drama, and low notes of regret. Reid makes a cool choice by including their platinum album lyrics in the back of the book for readers to reference while absorbing the story. The lyrics definitely enhanced the story line, yet I was left wanting them to be embedded in the various character’s monologues. I can only imagine for a band singing the same set of songs over and over for a year on tour those words are imprinted in the mind. Billy Dunne, the band leader, was the only exception.
This book sets itself apart in style and purpose. The format of the book is unique and never breaks. If a reader does not accept it from the get-go, they might as well set it aside. The New York Times described the formatting as, “The camera is locked on a tripod, the interviewees confessing their greatest fears and loves in the same shoulders-up shot for much of the novel.”
I wasn’t unhinged by the format, but also not convinced it was necessary for the book’s success. Leave it as the author’s preference for her work. After completing the book though, I did not like the spliced together, oral history style. Everyone’s parts and pieces seemed to fit together too well making the story seem a bit disingenuous. Of course band members are going to have collective memories, but also individual ones. Reid’s choose to string the narratives together exclusively around shared experiences, probably because these people are not real.
As far as the purpose of the book, these days a lot of fiction are reading like societal beacons toward some truth. Reid did not hold any characters back from revealing their corrupted natures. She exposed all the addictions, selfish intentions, pride, and hate. The raw humanity was cringe worthy. Some of the band members reformed and others did not. Reid did not set out to affirm which lifestyle was right or wrong. She stated a story and I felt relieved that not every painful experience has a balm or solution we must discover. Evidence of Reid’s excellent presentation of her characters is the number one searched question about the book is if the band was real or not.
Her plot choices were also respectable. She could have written the obvious storyline and still created a sellable and entertaining book. I am so thankful she tackled the harder, more complex narratives. Readers can appreciate, Daisy’s story is not a direct giveaway. And the foreshadowed course of Billy and Daisy’s relationship, well you just have to read to the end to know the truth.
This book is a buy and pass along to a friend. The story is fun, memorable, and worth a share. Not everything we read these days needs to be a lecture. Sometimes we can be free to pop in our favorite album and listen to the music.
I gathered up a few titles with the same tune as Daisy Jones and The Six, check them out and see if you like one!
