WITH this novel having swept the late teen to new adult market with its style and having been turned into a recent and equally successful Amazon Prime series, many may be wondering what is so charming about Taylor Jenkins Reid’s work.
Reid excels at the writing of fictional celebrities. In using all the most glamorous and remembered elements of an era, the reader is drawn into a romance with a world they likely were not even alive to see the first time around, and most importantly, with scandalous but ultimately human characters.
Loosely inspired by the iconography of 1970s style and personal tension such as Fleetwood Mac comes the fictional rock ‘n’ roll band, Daisy Jones & The Six.
In this particular captivating exploration of the personal and the public, we are introduced to two stories of young people.
The first is Daisy Jones, a wealthy but neglected teenage artist in LA who even while underage begins to go to bars and venues and becomes fascinated with live music and its process and no matter what, is determined to be taken seriously.
She is challenged early by a lack of support and validation from her parents or the world around her, in her striking beauty and uniqueness she is seen early in life by men as someone to write songs about and not one to write songs of her own.
Over in Pittsburgh, the Dunne brothers – lead singer Billy and guitarist Graham – form a band and struggle to get recognised as they move up the ranks from small, local concert venues to larger ones.
Past early troubles and losses along the way they form what they think to be their final group with three other members, Eddie, Warren and Karen, and in honour of the support of Billy’s girlfriend Camila, name themselves The Six.
Both in LA now and further into their whirlwind youths, The Six and Daisy Jones steadily gain success in music separately, but somehow are missing something to skyrocket their work and fame.
When Daisy Jones features on a song for their newest album, however, the song becomes their biggest hit yet, and before they even know it she is becoming closer to a permanent member of the band.
With her fiery and unapologetic nature, Daisy is overwhelming to the sober Billy, attempting to leave the more damaging aspects of the rock star lifestyle behind him.
When these two striking and endlessly stubborn characters combine, they create in Daisy Jones & The Six what makes both its fictional and real-life audience keep coming back.
Two fronts of one band are constantly in competition, with a real and compelling tension between them on stage – they are both addicts – but Daisy’s recklessness, almost like a mirror to Billy’s past self, is a threat not only to his recovery, but though he would never admit it, to his marriage.
Reminiscent of the draw of a celebrity magazine but with brilliant heart and substance in its empathy, Daisy Jones & The Six explores all art as a self-portrait, and the kinds of love that are good, bad and complicated, even all at once.
