Set mostly in and around Soho in 1967-1968, the epicentre of Swinging London, with sorties to Italy, New York and California, the narrative features walk-on appearances by many of the great and good of the time, including, but not limited to (deep breath) Sandy Denny John Martyn David Bowie Marc Bolan Syd Barrett Allan Ginsberg Brian Jones Steve Marriott Francis Bacon Lucian Freud John Lennon Jimi Hendrix Leonard Cohen Janis Joplin Frank Zappa Jerry Garcia and various members of The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. A failed musician, he is estranged from his Christian evangelical family back home in Toronto because of his homosexuality. Also integral to the set up is mild-mannered Canadian manager Levon Frankland, who has the vision to put the band together. Their drummer, gruff Yorkshire man Griff Griffin, who learned his trade on the northern jazz circuit, is - as the only non-songwriting member of the ensemble - very much the shadow man, although he does endure a personal tragedy. This recurring conceit can amuse or annoy in equal measure, depending on one's attitude, or even one's patience As well Jasper has spent time in a Dutch psychiatric institution after being hidden away at a posh English private boarding school. Virtuoso Hendrixesque guitarist Jasper de Zoet is the ‘illegitimate’ scion of a wealthy Dutch family who, in a characteristic call-back to one of Mitchell’s previous novels, 2010’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, suffers from schizophrenia/demonic possession (delete where applicable). Home counties folksinger Elf Holloway is going through a bad breakup from her garrulous Australian boyfriend Bruce – who also happens to be the other half of her performing duo. Oh, and he’s just been kicked out of his band. He also has ongoing issues with an alcoholic, abusive father. When we first meet Gravesend-bred blues bassist Dean Moss, he gets mugged, loses his bedsit and his job in a cafe, all within the space of a few hours. Not that things were always so rosy during their rapid rise along the rocky road to rock'n'roll stardom.
After all, they are called Utopia Avenue. What it lacks in sparkling ingenuity it more than makes up for in spellbinding storytelling.Utopia Avenue is a happy book about a happy band. Overstuffed at times, sure but written so assuredly and with such verve, sprinkled with a slight dusting of the fantastical, you’ll forgive its similitude. It is saturated in 1960s counterculture, and the racism and sexism of the time. “Utopia Avenue” ticks all the boxes of the archetypal ‘rise to the top’ tale of a rock band, replete with ego clashes, confrontations over creative differences, drug problems, a host of parasitic record-label personalities, and a flood of cameos by stars of the period (including Bowie, Jagger and Zappa). And he doesn’t here to the extent I wanted him to. It’s all part of the ‘Mitchell Experience.’ But his name has clout. This is the story of a band that made it big, embellished with connections to Mitchell’s earlier work, which will add delicious texture for some readers, and befuddle others. It is zesty entertainment, despite its overwhelming familiarity, the destination of its arc visible from its opening pages (and its blurb). It examines the lives of the quartet that make up Utopia Avenue - troubled guitarist Jasper de Zoet, bassist Dean Moss, keyboardist and singer Elf Holloway, and drummer Peter ‘Griff’ Griffin - as it charts the development of their three albums, and their burgeoning success and fame. David Mitchell’s “Utopia Avenue” is a rags-to-riches rock ‘n’ roll story that begins in London, 1967, and ends in tragedy in San Francisco a little more than a year later.
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