Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.  This was an entertaining read.  If you are into British rock bands of the  60s and 70s you will likely get a kick out of this book

I reviewed for The ArtsFuse: 
Book Review: “Utopia Avenue” — A Broken Record?
JULY 17, 2020 LEAVE A COMMENT
By Clea Simon
These days, I worry that David Mitchell is losing touch with reality.
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. Random House, 592 pp., $30

Creating – making any kind of art – requires a form of split personality. Like a person suffering from delusions, the artist must experience that which isn’t – seeing the impossible. Hearing voices. That’s the source of the creativity. However, to shape these visions into a work of art the creative person must also be relentlessly pragmatic. The artist has to maintain a sense of what works in the real world and be willing and able to prune back the wild imaginings into something that the rest of humanity can make sense of.
These days, I worry that David Mitchell is losing touch with reality.
Mitchell’s new novel, Utopia Avenue, creates – or, really re-creates – a world of intense imaginative abundance: the English music scene of the late ‘60s. It opens, like a classic rags-to-riches tale, at a low point: Dean Moss, a bassist who has been kicked out of his band, is about to be robbed of his rent money – the first in a series of catastrophes that costs him his job and lands him homeless, in a bar, where he is spotted by a “bookish-looking” stranger, Levon Frankland, with dubious intentions.
Dean needn’t worry – yet. Levon’s aim is to take Dean to hear a failing blues band, headed by a has-been who is being propped up by a monster drummer, the decidedly working-class “Griff” Griffin, and an upper-class guitarist, Jason De Zoet, who happens to be a psychedelic genius. (Think of a white, half-Dutch Jimi Hendrix.) Before long, he’s put them together with a buxom – and recently heartbroken – folkie, Elf Holloway. The resulting band, Utopia Avenue, works, for a while, as does Mitchell’s novel. Fully inhabiting his young creatives, he follows them through the trials of life – love and sex, birth and death – as they come together as a band, with chapters about their individual histories neatly slipping in backstory and providing context as they drive around in their broken-down van, the Beast, rubbing the rough edges off each other on the way to fame.
The five – Levon plays a lesser role but has his revelations as well – are not alone. Drawing on Brian Eno’s idea of the “scenius,” Mitchell depicts a world where everything contributes to the creative ferment. Love and drugs in many combinations, sure, but also the presence of a community in which art and experimentation are encouraged. Cameos by stars from John Lennon and David Bowie to Brian Jones and Frank Zappa, as well as scenesters like the plaster casters, toggle between gimmicky and fun, as do the references to real-life incidents (notably the sexual encounter between Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen in the Chelsea Hotel).
At times, Mitchell seems out of his league in describing music – a notoriously difficult pursuit. Although he usually avoids cliché (barring the expected “meteoric” guitar solos), his customary detailed and poetic visualizations tend toward word salad when trying to capture sound:  That can be playful, as when “Elf’s Hammond gatecrashes the party, finds its feet, and dances a drunken jig.” At other times, as when Joni Mitchell (in another cameo) “pulses, dives, aches, swivels, regrets, consoles, avows” as she sings, the list of verbs cancels itself out.
There’s so much here – art in a changing world, class and culture differences – that for a long time this hefty novel works. But in what could be described as a fall into classic rock and roll excess, Mitchell can’t resist fiddling – throwing in so many extra fillips and turns that he ruins the beauty of the tune. In Mitchell’s case, the fussing comes largely in the form of references to his earlier works, an increasingly common occurrence in his books. The first time one of these references pops up it feels witty, a tip of the hat to the long-time reader already invested in what fans call the “Mitchellverse.” For me, it was the appearance of “The Cloud Atlas Sextet” by Robert Frobisher, a nod to the composer in Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, that is discovered by De Zoet after a night with Mecca, an Astrid Kirchherr-like photographer. That Utopia’s DeZoet is related to the protagonist of Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (his great-great-great grandson, we eventually learn) is an equally unobtrusive nod to an earlier work. But before long references to these two books, as well as The Bone Clocks, Slade House, Black Swan Green, and Number Nine Dream, are taking over the plot, and undermining its coherence.

Author David Mitchell. Photo: Facebook
The problem is not in the allusions. It is that the narrative diverts to the styles of these earlier works, most notably the fantasy/horror of Bone Clocks and Slade House. De Zoet, we learn early on, appears to be on the autism spectrum. He works hard to translate emotions when in the presence of “Normals,” and both his awkwardness and his talent for masking draw on Mitchell’s writings about his own son. As the book progresses, we learn that the guitarist is also haunted by what appears at first to be an aural hallucination: a “knock knock” sound that may relate to his mother’s burial at sea. When that recurring sound is joined by apparent visual hallucinations – he sees the face of an Asian monk – it would seem that De Zoet’s undefined mental illness is worsening, a not unlikely development in a young artist in a drug-fueled scene. Rather than trust his character and letting this very real issue play out, however, Mitchell links the face to supernatural elements in the earlier books, tipping the book into science fiction.
Fantasy of this sort has become a Mitchell forte, and here serves as the kind of self-referential touch that may thrill diehard fans, as visual Easter eggs in superhero movies do for fans of the original comics. But for other readers – casual fans enjoying a historical rock-world novel or, god forbid, first-time readers unaware of Mitchell’s legacy – it’s maddening. Is this a book built on character? On individuals struggling to create art in the face of ordinary life crises? Or is it horror peopled by body-stealing demons? The two styles work at odds, and worse, and an extended detour involving generational regression via “mnemo-parallax” in pursuit of the 200-year-old monk Enomoto frankly wreaks of self-indulgence, draining the human storyline of its power. Although Mitchell pulls his narrative back for an emotionally appropriate conclusion (barring one reference to an apparent 10-year-old who claims to be 808), it’s too little too late. He’s lost the beat.
Some critics are already using the “broken record” metaphor for Utopia Avenue, largely because of its extended self-references. To these ears the novel plays more like a homemade mixtape. Everything we love about Mitchell is here – the wordplay, the imagery – but the tape’s been used too often. Old voices, fragments of former hits, keep breaking through, and what was charming the first time around has now become disruptive, interrupting what could have been a heady groove.
Clea Simon’s rock-world novel World Enough was named a “must read” by the Massachusetts Book Awards. Her next, Hold Me Down, will be published by Polis Books in September 2021. She can be reached at www.CleaSimon.com

I love David Mitchell and the world he creates, weaving through different timelines in all of his books. I love the magic of it. 

But this book didn’t work quite as well for me as his usually do. Utopia Avenue details the rise of the band of the same name, and each chapter is from the perspective of the band members. It’s a fun ride, but you can tell Mitchell gets bogged down in his love for the subject he’s writing about, and that’s when the book drags the most. The celebrity shmoozing is a bit cringey for me. 

The best part of Utopia Avenue for me, is where it connects with some of his previous novels, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and The Bone Clocks. This was exciting for me as a lover of the universe he’s created, but I would imagine if you picked up this book expecting a novel about a band, you would find that part extremely confusing. 

Mitchell’s writing is is some of my favorite, and it is as beautifully written as his other books. I just could have gone without some of the celebrity encounters and I felt it dragged out in the middle. That being said, I’m glad to have read it in connection with some of his other books. 3.5/5 stars.

Utopia Avenue documents the lives of a set of band members as they form in the late '60s and then attain fame. I was really excited to have the opportunity to read this novel, as it is my first David Mitchell book. Unfortunately, this one didn't work for me. It was relatively predictable (except for the experiences of one band member, Jasper de Zoet, who struggles with a very unexpected issue...I'll say no more, to avoid spoilers), which made it lull for me. It seemed that the author really had fun with the book, though, and introduced a variety of real-life performers that we encounter over the course of the book. I just wish that it was as fun for the reader. 

I look forward to trying out other books by this author, as I know that he is a beloved author to many. Better luck next time.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Random House for the opportunity to read an e-galley.

David Mitchell never ceases to amaze me! I was especially excited for this novel because I devour novels about fictional bands, and ‘Utopia Avenue’ more than scratched the itch for me. One of the most impressive things about this novel is that Mitchell has created a band that feels so real, as if I’d just overlooked or forgotten about their existence. Overall, this is one of my favorite books I’ve read in 2020 and recommend picking it up!

I adore David Mitchell and will read anything he writes. I was thrilled to see he had published a new book. I was also very pleased to see that 'Utopia Avenue' was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards. This is certainly one of my favorite reads of this year.

'Utopia Avenue' follows the birth and short life of a band, 'Utopia Avenue', through the perspectives of different members of the band. I loved the structure of the book, and seeing how the band developed from their different perspectives. Jasper was probably my favorite character; he has a very unique perspective and is so tortured for much of the book. 

The beginning of the book was a little slow for me, but once I really got into the story and the characters I couldn't put it down. The ending is sad but pretty perfect. 

A wonderfully written, unique and engaging book that I will be purchasing and recommending.

Man, I wanted to like this book. It's about rock music in the 60s, maaaan! I love rock history, and devour non-fiction books on the subject frequently. But it's so hard to make fictional bands seem authentic and the constant scenes of actual stars like Bowie, Jerry Garcia and Leonard Cohen had me cringing.

I know David Mitchell is a good writer, but I don't think he pulled off something that is nearly impossible. Not for me.

David Mitchell is my favorite author so I was absolutely head over heels when I heard he was releasing a book this year. Utopia Avenue is exactly the story I needed during the Covid shelter in place. I love when Mitchell writes about music and appreciate the nods and easter eggs for the other books in his "series". The characters were likable and the story compelling. More please!

Music will still do to people what it does to us now
<blockquote>"Songs do not change the world," declares Jasper. "People do. People pass laws, riot, hear God and act accordingly. People invent, kill, make babies, start wars."</blockquote>

Here's a novel that's mostly fun, if a little long (what is it with men shamelessly throwing hundreds upon hundreds of pages of their excess verbosity upon you?). Utopia Avenue, by David Mitchell, is the name of a fictitious British band in the late 1960s, fusion folk psychedelic rock 'n' roll, their struggles and adventures.

<blockquote>"Songs like dandelion seeds, billowing across space and time. Who knows where they'll land? Or what they'll bring?" [...] "Where will these song-seeds land? It's the Parable of the Sower. Often, usually, they'd land on barren soil and not take root. But sometimes, they land in a mind that is ready. Is fertile. What happens then? Feelings and ideas happen. Joy, solace, sympathy. Assurance. Cathartic sorrow. The idea that life could be, should be, better than this. An invitation to slip you into somebody else's skin for a little while. If a song plants an idea or a feeling in a mind, it has already changed the world."</blockquote>

We get to know three of the band members quite intimately, while the drummer remains aloof. Each of them standouts in their fields, the manager brought them together with the goal of forming a genre-spanning supergroup. So it was a little less than organic, but on the whole, they're hardworking, decent people who make respectably good music; they pay some dues but find some level of success. And they at times succumb to the lifestyle excesses that come with the job.

The guitarist's story thread veers off into the paranormal. This makes me roll my eyes a little, even if I can't turn the pages fast enough; it's also classic Mitchell territory and fodder for late-night weed-fueled conversations about life, the universe, and everything.

The characters do not get equal airtime, and this felt unbalanced to me. The manager also stars in a story a two, but it's impossible to ignore the cameos. David Bowie, Brian Jones, Leonard Cohen, Syd Barrett, Janis Joplin, and others. Gimmicky to the point of tiresome. It irked me that Cohen mentions Toronto but not Montreal. 

<blockquote>"Once, I took the elevator up there." Leonard nods at the Empire State Building. "I looked over Manhattan and was seized by an absurd desire to take it. To own it. Do we write songs as a substitute for possession?" 

"I write songs to discover what I want to say," says Elf. 

"I write 'em 'cause I just bloody love it," says Dean. 

"Maybe you're the purest artist here," remarks Lenny.</blockquote>
Cue music. It just feels a little cheap.

Although, I thoroughly enjoyed the extended scenes with Francis Bacon, one of a few non-musicians on the London scene at the time to make their way into this novel, but likely I responded to that only because he's been a topic of conversation around here lately, his art grim and eerie and visceral. His art is not on stage here, only his lifestyle.

These walk-on parts add nothing to the story. But in a sense, they are the story. This is Mitchell's love letter to a bygone era of music that I can only assume played a significant role in shaping him.

<blockquote>"In fifty years," said Jasper, "or five hundred, or five thousand, music will still do to people what it does to us now. That's my prediction."</blockquote>

So, what does it do to us now? Music is our balm, our panacea. It can encircle you with your people, it can shut out the entire world. I think it is used more often as a distraction than as a connection. It blares everywhere, but who really listens? 

<blockquote>Hundreds of people pass by. Reality erases itself as it rerecords itself, Elf thinks. Time is the Great Forgetter. She gets her notebook from her handbag and writes, Memories are unreliable . . . Art is memory made public. Time wins in the long run. Books turn to dust, negatives decay, records get worn out, civilisations burn. But as long as the art endures, a song or a view or a thought or a feeling someone once thought worth keeping is saved and stays shareable. Others can say, "I feel that too."</blockquote>

It transcends language and creates an illusion of oneness; one person responds to a beat, another to a melody, another to the story the lyrics tell, but it taps a harmony of being. It's much more complex than a shared feeling.

Utopia Avenue is not about music, it's about its creators. It explores the inspiration for the music — love, loss, drugs, schizophrenia, otherworldly experience. Sometime the art comes about because it's a better option than not trying to make art. Sometimes it pays the rent. Art can come equally from hard work or divine luck or happenstance.  

Super entertaining and full of flavor (though some not always to my taste), but a little short on substance. It took me to some unexpected places, dramatically speaking, and it was not a terrible way to spend midsummer evenings on my balcony. Even if I can reel off better band names in my sleep.

While I'm a David Mitchell fan, reading this one was a slog for me most of the way through. Though it was fun to revisit the 60s of my childhood, and to see the numerous cameos of rock musicians and other celebrities of the time, I find reading about music that you cannot hear because it doesn't really exist to be somewhat annoying. Also, this seems to be two novels shoved together--one that exists in the realm of Mitchell's other horology books, with some characters reappearing here along with another deZoet, this time Jasper--and another novel that focuses on the rather pedestrian trials and tribulations of a psychedelic folk rock group called Utopia Avenue (which claims Jasper as a member). The two aspects were often jarring. Nevertheless, I'm happy I stuck with it to the satisfying end. I just wish I could listen to the music.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This bildungsroman of for young musicians making their way in  the rock and roll revolution in England in 1968 is one of Mitchell's most accessible and engaging novels . Each has a distinct and singular talent, but somehow their eclectic sound works, thrusting them up the ladder of success and into a world in which famous performers and familiar performances blend into the lives and experiences of four singular characters from disparate backgrounds who become the band of the title. The novel references some of the author's previous books and characters, but a familiarity with Mitchell's oeuvre isn't necessary to immerse yourself thoroughly and enjoyable in his fully realized world.

Utopia Avenue is the story of a "created" band in the mid to late 1960s. You have Dean, the bassist, Jasper, the guitarist, Griff, the drummer, and Elf, the keyboardist. Manager Levon finds these four and brings them together to create a band. Dean, Jasper, & Elf are the song creators of the group which has found a very democratic way of being a band. Over the next two years the band creates two albums and travels Europe and the US starting their careers. 
Like with all of Mitchell's books there is a supernatural element and the one in this book connect directly with Mitchell's earlier book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. But this is not the only connection to another Mitchell book. There are several places where we meet characters from other books, go to places in other novels, or experience music from another Mitchell musician. 
I liked this novel but I had issues with it. The big thing is the almost constant cameos by musicians of the time. Multiple meetings with Brian Jones and David Bowie, an acid trip with Jerry Garcia, an elevator ride with Leonard Cohen, etc. Now I am not a musician nor did I live in the 60s but it felt more like name dropping than helping the story progress. Also Dean's story felt like it came to a predictable outcome which did not help me feel better about the book. 
I have not read all of Mitchell's novels but I do want to go and read Jacob de Zoet. I think the biggest issue that Mitchell has is Cloud Atlas. So many readers really liked that one so it makes the others less enjoyable. That being said give this one a try, it might be a little longer than it needed to be but it is still good.

I was psyched to see that David Mitchell was releasing a new novel. Several of his previous books are amongst my all time favorites. I love the quirk-factor and the smart writing.

In this tale we follow a fictional 60's-era British rock band called Utopia Avenue. The book has plenty of cameos by real rockers from The Beatles to The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and more. The book oozes with the vibe of the era. Some may compare this book to Daisy Jones & The Six (loved it!) which also follows a rock band during roughly the same point in time. While there are similarities the feeling and style of both books are different. Utopia Avenue reads like straight up 1960's historical fiction but there is a sneaky thread of oddity running through in the story. We see all the tumult of the era with riots, anti-Vietnam sentiment, sex, drugs and rock & roll. There are the growing pains of achieving fame and how it impacts the group.

I enjoy music-themed stories and this one was no exception. I also like that the author has created a playlist for the novel, which you can find on Spotify. Mitchell is clearly a talented writer who has a knack for details that make stories come alive. I love the cleverness of the connections that he makes. This will be a great read for Mitchell fans AND music fans alike.

An exceptionally engaging tale of the 4 members (plus their relatives, friends and enemies) of an English musical band of the late 60s. Mitchell consistently surprises and delights with new images of the mundane.  For example, when describing the humid London air he writes “Pigeons row, not flap, through the humid air.” 
We learn how that band forms, faces the challenges of succeeding in the music world.  Along the way they meet the gods of the rock and roll world. The pace ebbs and flows building to a wondrous end.
An academic law library will add this to their collection of material to give students a release from the stress of legal eduction.

What a prose stylist!  I am reading happily away in this book, and will look forward to adding it to my David Mitchell collection!

I love David Mitchell, but this subject matter just does not interest me in the same way his other works have. He's still able to spin a compelling yarn, though. I will happily read whatever he puts out next.

Utopia Avenue is a fun book. The rock scene of the 60s in both the UK and US is fascinating, and the cameos by stars were great. I like how the book was structured around the songs on albums. But the book would have been more fun if it was 200 pages shorter and had a stronger plot and a clearer understanding of who the main character is.

All of the conflict comes from outside of the band. Real rock bands are infamous for being petri dishes of conflict, yet the members of UA all get along. I wanted to see some Fleetwood Mac in Griff's attraction to Elf (which went no where), or some of the Beatles' songwriting rivalry between Jasper, Dean, and Elf (other than rolling dice). Just like the band doesn't realize that Elf is the frontwoman, the book doesn't seem to realize that Jasper is the main character. I'm guessing that readers of Mitchell's Jacob de Zoet book will appreciate Jasper even more than I did.

I had very high hopes for this book and it fell short of me. Reviews were good. It was highly publicized. And seemed to follow the same vein as Daisy Jones & The Six. But where Utopia Avenue failed, in my opinion, was capturing my interest from the beginning. It was a slow go of things and I struggled to connect with the main characters. There were a lot of fun cultural references for the 1960s but beyond that, I found there to be a lack of sustenance. I wanted more. I wanted Utopia Avenue to be my new favorite band. And it just didn't happen.

DNF. I think I picked this up at the wrong time and am not in the right mood for such a sprawling read. Thank you to Random House for the free advance copy.