What readers think of Utopia Avenue, plus links to write your own review.

Utopia Avenue is the seventh novel by award-winning British author, David Mitchell. In early 1967, due to a pickpocket, bass guitarist Dean Moss finds himself, in quick succession, homeless, jobless, almost penniless and still owing the final payment on his guitar. Levon Frankland appears at the critical moment with a proposal, and shortly thereafter, Dean’s on stage at the 2i’s club, playing with a dazzling lead guitarist and a talented drummer. Frankland has big plans for them.

Not much later, Jasper de Zoet, Peter “Griff” Griffin and Dean are listening, spellbound, as Elf Holloway, the remaining (and better) half of the Fletcher and Holloway duo, sings her compositions solo. It’s these four that will comprise the band soon to be known as Utopia Avenue, which Frankland hopes to promote to fame and fortune.

It takes a year of hard slog, practice and travelling to gigs, not all of which are well-received, before they have a single and an album on the market. This eclectic mix of singer/songwriters, each with established roots in distinctly different genres, produces a unique sound. Elf has proven her popularity in folk; Griff drums jazz; Dean’s style is blues; and Jasper’s, acid rock; music critics struggle to classify them, but the public likes what it hears.

If Dean comes across as an angry young man with father issues, Elf’s background epitomises family support, while Griff’s anarchic persona belies a loving family; Levon tries to stay under the homophobic radar that typifies the times.

Jasper is different: a youth spent commuting across the channel between his maternal English and paternal Dutch families, he describes himself as emotionally dyslexic, and that’s not all that’s going on in his head. A problem that has plagued Jasper since he was fifteen seems to be re-emerging and the band’s visit to Amsterdam allows him to seek help…

“A brain constructs a model of reality. If the model isn’t too different from most people’s model, you’re labelled “Sane”. If that model is different, you’re labelled a genius, a misfit, a visionary or a nutcase. In extreme cases, you’re labelled a schizophrenic and locked up”

Three main narratives, with some flashbacks, trace the band’s trajectory from inception to (relatively short-lived) fame and the aftermath, detailing incidents and life events that inspire the songs on their three albums. The chapters are headed for the LP track titles, with the narrative perspective denoted as the artist’s credit, in parentheses.

This is not a quick read, but it’s hard not to invest in these characters and worry about their fate and feel indignant at what befalls them: love and loss, grief and guilt, plagiarism, blackmail and false imprisonment. Mitchell easily evokes the era, with plenty of star cameos dotting a soup thick with sixties names, drug use, free love, and song titles that are bound to cause earworms (some quite annoying).

While this novel can probably be read as a stand-alone, and will appeal especially to readers of a certain vintage, having read Mitchell’s previous works will certainly enhance the reader’s enjoyment, as there are quite a lot of references (characters, events, objects) to earlier works: Mitchell fans are more likely to “get it”. There are also significant spoilers for The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Another excellent dose of David Mitchell magic.

This is a must read for David Mitchell fans, but should have a wider appeal as well. I have only read a few of his books (The Bone Clocks and Slade House) both of which I loved. Familiar characters from prior Mitchell books make appearances, but you don’t need to know the backstories to follow along in Utopia Avenue. I’ve heard his novels called not accessible but that’s definitely not true here. It’s an easy to follow story about a fictional band in mid to late 1960s England. If you liked Daisy Jones and the Six, you should like this as well. I recommend this novel for a wide audience.

I want to go on record as being a David Mitchell fan. I believe that The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Black Swan Green, and Cloud Atlas are all brilliant books. So, when I was offered an advance copy of Utopia Avenue, I was thrilled and couldn't wait to read it. What a disappointment awaited me.

The basic plot is a bit of a cliche: we follow a rock band from their inception in the gleaming eye of a manager, who brings together four seemingly disparate talents into a group which, inevitably, becomes very successful. Herein lies the first problem I had with this novel: this process is, I'm sure, very moving and fascinating to someone directly involved, but to the reader it is all rather dull. How many different ways can you describe the bass player putting down a funky beat, the lead guitarist ripping off an amazing riff, and so on? Not many, I guarantee you.

The era involved is the late 60s, and the scene is rock in both Great Britain and the United States, so naturally famous names show up. Oddly, though, none of them are truly vibrant characters in this story, so their inclusion seems more like name-dropping than anything else. True, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, and Jerry Garcia have a few meaningful lines, but others, including John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, and a whole host of others, are merely there to preserve a bit of verisimilitude, but add nothing, which is a shame.

Still, Mitchell is a very talented writer and he has created extremely likeable characters here, so I was willing to go along with the novel to a point (though I was thinking it overlong and in need of editing). There are also a couple of subplots involving, respectively, homosexuality and psychosis (don't worry, these are not spoilers) that have some passing interest, though the supernatural involvement with the insanity plot seems a bit out of place here; still, not truly objectionable (and a neat tie-in to a previous Mitchell novel). So far, so good.

But let me not mince words. I hated the ending. Hated, hated, hated it. Have I made myself clear? Loathed. Detested. Abhorred. Despised. Abominated. Until the ending, I was willing to go along and think of this as a perfectly acceptable three-star read, which to me is a book worth your time, but not worth going out of your way to read. The fact that I could hate the ending as much as I do and still give this two stars is a testament to Mitchell's raw skill. How unfortunate that he chose an emotionally manipulative ending that does not match in any way with the arc of the story he established to that point. Oh, I am aware that he can do whatever he wishes with his characters, and he is welcome to do so, but as a reader I have every right to object, and I do. Give this a miss.