Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

Published by Ballantine
on March 5, 2019

Review:

When I first saw this book pop up I didn’t really pay it any mind. It didn’t seem like the type of book I would be into, but then I saw the teaser trailer for it and my interest peaked. Initially, I decided I would just watch the series, but on a whim I bought the book and decided to read it before the series started, and I am sooooo glad I did. I loved it so much.

It’s a quick read, and I loved the style. The entire thing is written like a documentary. It’s a series of interviews with members of the band and producers, some friends and family of the band.

Daisy Jones and the Six were huge in the late 70s. Before Daisy, the band was just the Dunne brothers, and it was started by Billy and Graham Dunne and their friends in Pennsylvania. The band grows in popularity and heads to LA to make it big and that they do. The band goes on tour. Billy gets caught up in drugs and women and almost loses his wife, Camilla, and his new daughter. Billy goes to rehab and changes his ways – he didn’t like who he’d become. Once he’s out of rehab, Billy comes back with a new attitude. He’s happy for his newfound sobriety and he’s happy his wife never left him. He writes a song for Camilla titled “Honeycomb” – it’s good, but the producers and most of the rest of the band feel like it’s too safe.

This is when one producer brings in Daisy Jones to amp things up. Daisy grew up in a loveless home and has always loved music. At a young age, she started sneaking out and going to concerts and partying with the band, which led to a coke, alcohol and pill popping habit. She’s written a few songs, and she’s good, but she’s never really “made it”.

The addition of Daisy to the “Honeycomb” track make sit an instant hit, and despite Billy and Daisy not getting along, their chemistry is undeniable. Their producers convince them to do an album together. It’s bumpy and tempers flare, but they manage to do it. Billy and Daisy develop a friendship, and their chemistry is strong, but Billy is committed to his wife and his daughters, and Daisy is too committed to her drugs and her drinking – how could it ever work out?

As Daisy and the band head out on tour, they’re on top of the world. The fame and fortune they’ve all dreamed of is in the palm of their hand, so why did they suddenly break up?

That’s the question that the interviewer is trying to answer. In the book, everyone is being interviewed roughly 40 years (my best estimate) in the future, so the band is all in their 60s now. As one would expect, memories fade, and the author does a great job at showing the many perspectives of those involved.

The story is compelling and the revelation of who is conducting the interview is super sweet, and they are doing it all as a tribute to the one person who kept them all afloat as they chased their dreams makes it even more poignant.