“No writer alive seems to be having as much fun as Mitchell.” - The Globe and Mail “A genre-bending, time-leaping, world-traveling, puzzle-making, literary magician.” - Esquire He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can evidently do anything.” - The New York Times Book Review “To open a Mitchell book is to set forth on an adventure.” - The Boston Globe This is Mitchell at his best." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) delivering more fun, more mischief, and more heart than ever before. "Mitchell's magical, much anticipated latest is a rollicking, rapturous tale of 1960s rock 'n' roll. “Expect prose that’s as electric as the music.” - Kirkus Reviews rock ‘n’ roll road trip whose characters and narrative become the song that gets stuck in your head.” - USA Today Utopia Avenue is a fun and fulfilling read. Mitchell marvelously brings it all to life by focusing his most engaging storytelling on each band member’s own evolution, along with some experimental narrative and exceptional in-concert scenes. . The book is most alive and most compelling when Mitchell slips the surly bonds of the realist premise and lands in his own extraordinary imagined worlds.” - The Guardian “Mitchell superbly conveys the energy and spirit of the age. Utopia Avenue brilliantly explores this theme.” - Los Angeles Review of Books “Now, more than ever, it seems vital to examine the various ways that our lives are densely interconnected rather than isolated and separate. “Mitchell’s rich imaginative stews bubble with history and drama, and this time the flavour is a blend of Carnaby Street and Chateau Marmont.” - The Washington Post Making your way through this novel feels like riding a high-end convertible down Hollywood Boulevard on the prettiest day of the year while luminaries wave to you from the sidewalks.” - Slate Mitchell’s prose is suppler and richer than ever, and his ability to conjure a historical milieu he never actually experienced does not falter. Utopia Avenue is, page by page, a sheer pleasure to read. Can we really change the world, or does the world change us?Praise for Utopia Avenue: Emerging from London's psychedelic scene in 1967, and fronted by folk singer Elf Holloway, blues bassist Dean Moss and guitar virtuoso Jasper de Zoet, Utopia Avenue embarked on a meteoric journey from the seedy clubs of Soho, a TV debut on Top of the Pops, the cusp of chart success, glory in Amsterdam, prison in Rome and a fateful American sojourn in the Chelsea Hotel, Laurel Canyon, and San Francisco during the autumn of '68.ĭavid Mitchell's kaleidoscopic novel tells the unexpurgated story of Utopia Avenue's turbulent life and times of fame's Faustian pact and stardom's wobbly ladder of the families we choose and the ones we don't of voices in the head, and the truths and lies they whisper of music, madness and idealism. Utopia Avenue may be the most extraordinary British band you've never heard of. Obviously Bone Clocks cranks those elements up to 11, and it seems like since that time those elements are starting to dominate his writing (and it even retcons a lot of Thousand Autumns in the process)Īnd yet, even though the supernatural element of Utopia Avenue is pretty jarring, if it wasn’t in there, what would be driving the book? The whole thing is kind of limp without it.From the internationally bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas. The supernatural elements of Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas were more new-agey, magical realism, mysterious type stuff rather than overt fantasy. I think on the macro level, Mitchell’s uber novel stuff is cool, but the overt fantasy stuff is just not a good fit for *most* of his books (Slade House, an overt horror story, is the exception). However I do think everything he says is correct, and it certainly feels like it is the the least of Mitchell’s books. Seems like I have very similar taste with this dude - will probably check out his other videos, haha.Īs far as Utopia Ave goes, like him I enjoyed the book on the basic level of being entertained as I read it. I will never forget the feeling of reading that book for the first time.Īs a side note, I do love two of the novels the reviewer name checked - Lethem’s You Don’t Love Me Yet and Egan’s Visit From the Goon Squad. A beautiful novel and I’m a little taken aback that Mitchell considers it his weakest. Want to say that I totally agree with him w/r/t Number9dream. It is certainly a poor review overall, but I dunno if I’d say it’s particularly mean or cutting. He even says he enjoys it it and cried at the end of the novel. I don’t think this is *that* scathing review though. I Agree with the guy on almost everything.
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