“Daisy Jones & The Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Birth and Death of a Shining Star

Taylor Jenkins Reid has certainly made a bit of a splash recently being featured in numerous reputable publications, and with Daisy Jones & The Six it seems she has raised the bar for herself even higher.

Told through a novel, this is the chronicle of one of the most iconic rock groups from the 1970s, their extremely fortunate rise to their regrettable fall at the absolute height of their popularity.

Taylor Jenkins Reid Enters the World of Rock n' Roll

The icons of rock n' roll have risen and fallen countless times over the last few decades, imprinted forever in our books, memories and musical records. Many of these stars led lives laden with mystery and seemingly nonsensical decisions, their every move capturing the imagination of a worldwide audience... and just as fast as they rose to the top, many of them vanished into nothingness. In her novel Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid takes us into the heart of the iconic group, chronicling their own meteoric rise and abrupt downfall.

The novel begins by introducing us to Daisy herself, a more or less regular girl living in Los Angeles in the late sixties, enjoying everything the wild nightlife has to offer. She's sneaking into all the clubs on the Sunset Strip, is sleeping around with rock stars and doing all the drugs she could ever want. However, her one real passion is rock n' roll, and her big dream is to one day sing at the Whisky a Go Go to carve her own path in musical history. By the time she turns twenty, she is starting to get noticed for both her voice as well as her charm and looks, setting the stage for something unforgettable.

Whisky a Go Go in 80s.

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At the same time, a band known as The Six is starting to cause some waves in the world of rock, with Billy Dunne at the lead. A certain producer has a stroke of absolute genius, and visualizes the electric combination which can result from putting Daisy and The Six together... and thus, history was born. We follow the band from its very inception across their various concerts, joys, and troubles which left their mark on musical history, up until the one fateful moment where they seemingly just ceased to exist.

An Oral History of Greatness

To begin with, even though this book is indeed a novel and a work of fiction, it seems to me the author put every effort possible into making it feel like a work of reality. Not only has she done pretty much every inch of research there is to on the subject, but she also took great care in structuring and presenting it all in a very realistic manner. Rather than a straightforward narration, what we get is an oral history of the band which follows the various members over the years. In other words, it's pretty much all told through interviews, recollections and whatnot.

From an educative standpoint, the novel does go in fairly deeply into the whole rock n' roll culture of the late 60s, 70s and 80s, touching on virtually all the aspects we tend to associate with those times. Now, there are some people who seem to be warning others about this book containing possible triggers, but I would simply like to assure you there is nothing outlandish or unexpected, especially if you are already familiar with the era. There are definitely a lot of drugs, promiscuous sex and at times with girls of a questionable age. While it's all mentioned rather vividly, it's never described in needless details, but only enough to give us a fair depiction of what was happening during those times.

Personally-speaking, I wasn't very familiar with Daisy & The Six, and as far as a starting point to learn about the band, this book did a fantastic job. It takes the time to acquaint us with all the different characters who played a role in the band's lifetime, with the author always knowing how to tread the line between not enough and too much information. 

We are spared needless details while being presented with the more noteworthy facts about these people and the prominent traits they possess. While some of them are certainly less interesting than others, their stories always feel like they obey the reality of their biographies.

The Domain of Endless Drama

While the novel certainly hopes to teach us a lot about the group and its history, it's important to remember it is, first and foremost, a work of fiction, and thus aims to entertain in one way or another. Now, from a suspense point of view, I found the story to be fairly limited for one very understandable reason: it follows reality as closely as possible. 

Personally-speaking, I can seldom resist the temptation to look up real people discussed in works of fiction, and as such their ultimate fates weren't exactly a mystery to me. However, if you can be wiser than I was and stop yourself from looking these people up, then you'll definitely get a bit more enjoyment out of seeing their stories unfold.

While I found the book to be short on suspense, if there is one category where it certainly doesn't lack, it's drama. Flowing through the veins of virtually every artist we meet, there is definitely no shortage of crises for all the characters to face, both internal and external. While some of them seemed ridiculous and laughable, others did manage to capture my attention and make me feel something for the characters.

I think my sole point of contention with this novel is the amount of time it takes to actually begin developing a relationship with the various characters. Because of the way in which this novel is structured, we are constantly jumping from person to person and it takes some time and effort to know them all well enough. 

In other words, it is possible you might need to arm yourself with a bit of patience when it comes to finding people you can really connect with and root for. It's definitely a surmountable flaw which I don't think should really deter anyone from giving the novel a go.

The Final Verdict

Despite its couple of missteps, Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid is a fantastically-profound novel about one of the more iconic rock bands of the 1970s, an in-depth account of their world in an oral history format. 

If you are even slightly interested in the rock scene of the time or the band itself, then I recommend you give this book a shot, especially if you are looking for something more digestible to introduce you to this world.

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Taylor Jenkins Reid Personal site Taylor Jenkins Reid is an American author best-known for writing The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, One True Loves, Forever Interrupted, and more recently, Daisy Jones & Six, which ended up becoming a New York Times bestseller. Her books have been featured in various publications including People, US Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly and Good Morning America.