— Gowri Raj Varma
Today morning, I woke up to the smell of rain and decided that I simply had to read. It had been months since I’d finished a work of fiction even though my bookshelf has been fully stacked. I decided to go down the good-old Libgen/Z Library route, scouring through its catalogues and wondering which light novel I could complete in one day. As I chanced upon The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (a book I read last year and thoroughly enjoyed), I remembered a friend suggesting another work by the same author: Daisy Jones & The Six. Its synopsis gives the impression of yet another Y/A novel about coming-of-age rock stars falling in love and losing themselves in drug and booze fuelled toxic behaviour. But my friend, a woman who has read an astonishing variety of books, said that this tale might just be her favourite. And of course, the choice made itself.
Author Taylor Jenkins Reid was fascinated by the world of 1970s rock-and-roll, especially the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Home to big names like The Eagles, Crossby Stills & Nash, and Joni Mitchell, it was a world of glitz and glam whose magnitude awed every wannabe musician. One particular duo caught her attention the most- Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham from the immensely popular band, Fleetwood Mac. Two lead singers with a fraught and never-to-be romantic relationship, a story she could not help wondering about. And thus, Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne were born.
Daisy, oh Daisy. So unlike the delicate flower after which she was named. Drop-dead gorgeous with gazelle-like limbs, coppery hair, and the most stunning big blue eyes, Daisy knows that she’s captivating. She is a born superstar with a voice that needs no vocal training- the minute she decides to sing a few tunes, the world stops turning and everyone’s listening. As a young girl with rich, artist parents who show her beauty off in front of their guests but leave her discarded otherwise, she fills her empty days by snorting lines and popping pills with celebrities and groupies. Her only friend, Simone, is off travelling the world and promoting her music. Daisy spends her days with no real purpose, until one day she decides that she’s done being everyone else’s muse. She wants to write her own music, and so she will.
Daisy is only one half of the story. On the other side is The Six (previously called The Dunne Brothers). Frontman Billy Dunne and his younger brother Graham have always known that music’s their calling. Ever since their unfaithful and useless father walked out of their house, leaving behind only a guitar to remember him by, Billy’s been sure. He would become one of the greatest singers there was. And he would never be his father.
Joining Billy and Graham in the band are siblings Pete and Eddie Loving, pianist Karen Sirko, and drummer Warren Rhodes. As they make their way from playing small gigs at weddings and bars to the spotlight in California, Billy begins reeling out of control. But he is able to emerge relatively unscathed from the drugs-and-booze induced fever dreams as long as he listens to his wife Camila (a woman who “tells shit like it is”), the love of his life.
The Six and Daisy grow in popularity on different ends of the coast, but when the Six come to California and catch the eye of a manager from a major record label, things take a drastic turn. Ted, the manager, is convinced that the Six would benefit from adding a new element to their music- the rising star, Daisy Jones, already a teenage icon. The only problem? Daisy and Billy can’t stand each other. They are like two halves, the same halves, two people who see each other within themselves. It is like fire mixing with more fire, and it can only lead to explosions.
Daisy Jones & The Six is written entirely in an interview format, with a fictional biographer chronicling the rise and sudden split of the band. You’d think that reading interviews after interviews would feel dry and one-dimensional, seeing as there is no indication of the characters’ body language and feelings. My initial scepticism dissipated almost immediately; every character has been described so evocatively by the others. You know of Daisy’s disinterest in bras and footwear from Simone, and how she’s perhaps the most gorgeous woman in the world from Warren. You know of her pill problems from Karen, and her sheer tenacity and creative will from Billy. So when Daisy is being vulnerable during her interviews, you can, very vividly, picture her gait and her aloof expressions, the slight crack in her wonderful voice and the emotions glimmering in her blue eyes. Similarly, you know Billy. You know them all through the eyes of everyone else, and you see the simplest and most complex of human emotions and actions play out, and why one thing led to another.
Daisy Jones & The Six is a bandwagon book. It is a bookstagram darling, and for good reason. The plot is easy to follow and the language is accessible. You see a fictionalised version of what is a “behind-the-scenes” of famous people, and you realise they’re not as different from anyone else. It is, in my opinion, a non-condescending critique of celebrity worship. More importantly, it’s got quotes that deserve to be framed on a wall. How can you not relate when Billy says “She had written something that felt like I could have written it, except that I knew I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have come up with something like that. Which is what we all want from art, isn’t it? When someone pins down something that feels like it lives inside us? Take a piece of your heart out and shows it to you?” And at the same time, how can your heart not feel warm when you read things like “All I will say is that you show up for your friends on their hardest days. And you hold their hand through the roughest parts. Life is about who is holding your hand and, I think, whose hand you commit to holding.”?
I usually try to avoid mainstream books. Is it because I want to be “edgy” or have conversation points that contain obscure knowledge just to seem like I’m well-read and smart? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s also because, like all things in life, you’re afraid to feel disappointed when something seems too good to be true. But what I’ve realised is that a good book doesn’t need to be one that no one’s read. It can be a shared experience, uniting you with many others in the world you’ll never meet, but all of you connected by the simple fact that you read something that moved you. And this, this is one of those books.
Edited by Devika Dinesh
Design by Abhiram V M
Article 19 