Mitchell utopia avenue5/13/2023 The novel charts the band’s progress from their coming together, to their disastrous first gig, to a painful but comparatively rapid rise in the charts, to success at home and in the USA and (not a spoiler) their eventual break-up. Its longer sections are named for the band’s three albums. Three of the four band members are song-writers, and the book’s chapters are named for their songs. The book takes its title from Utopia Avenue, a fictional English rock band in the late 1960s: a socially awkward guitar player from a wealthy Dutch family who wrestles with his personal demons (word chosen carefully), a working-class bass player with long hair and a troubled relationship (an understatement) with his father, a rough Yorkshire lad on the drums, a middle-class woman folk-singer who is a wonder on the keyboards, and their Canadian manager, a decent man who gets them together and believes in their talent. Once again, the Book Group has taken me off my customary reading track. Before the meeting: This is the first book by David Mitchell that I’ve read.
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