"Utopia Avenue" by David Mitchell

 I loved it. It's a big book but it kept me hooked all the way from the start to the finish. Well before the end I was so worried about whether these four characters would survive that I literally couldn't pout the book down.

Utopia Avenue is a rock band formed in 1967 by bassist Dean, a working-class lad from Gravesend with a troubled home background, keyboardist Elf, a folk singer from a posh family, jazz drumming no-nonsense northerner Griff, and poshboy Jasper, a brilliant lead guitarist with a history of mental disease. Each chapter is given the title of the song that one of them is writing during that chapter. They progress from penniless obscurity, playing in student bars, to stardom. They meet, on level terms, the icons of the day: Hendrix and Brian Jones, John Lennon and David Bowie (still working in an office and waiting for his big break), Marc Bolan and Leonard Cohen to name bust a few. But every step of the way is filled with danger, from drug busts to paternity suits, family tragedies to psychotic episodes. 

I think it is fundamentally about Dean whose songs top and tail the book but for me the most fascinating character was Jasper, despite the chronological weirdness of his dip into madness. I loved his polite honesty and his insistence on taking everything literally. 

But the book revolves around four different personalities who, despite their individual rivalries and jealousies, gel because of their shared passion for music, and the music itself becomes one of the characters. Yes, Dean is the 'typical' rock star, taking every drug going and sleeping around but fundamentally each of them is a musician and even Dean forswears cocaine before a gig after discovering the effect it has on his performance. 

It was brilliantly structured, with a wonderful plot (although I spotted the foreshadowing and guessed the ending) and perfectly drawn characters. There were incredible episodes - I think my favourite moment was Jasper sitting at the wrong table at Elf's sister's wedding - and endless great lines.

The story of Jasper clearly has links with other David Mitchell novels: his girlfriend has an LP of the Cloud Atlas Sextet, from Cloud Atlas, and Jasper himself is a descendant of Jacob de Zoet, from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. 

So many selected quotes:

• "Outside, rain bombards the crocuses to silky mush." (A Raft and a River)
• "'Life has chapters,' says Imogen. 'One ends, another begins'." (A Raft and a River)
• "Sunday evening pools in London's gardens, seeps through cracks and darkens streets." (A Raft and a River)
• "Keeping track of each of us would drive God quite insane." (Darkroom)
• "Writing is a forest of faint paths, of dead-ends, hidden pits, unresolved chords, words that won't rhyme. You can be lost in there for hours. Days, even." (Darkroom)
• "Charm in a guy is a warning sign. Like black and yellow stripes in nature mean, 'Watch out, there are stings near this honey'." (Mona Lisa Sings the Blues)
• "At the end of its eight minute journey from the sun, light passes through the stained glass of St Matthias Church in Richmond, London, and enters the dual darkrooms of Jasper's eyeballs." (Wedding Presence)
• "Jasper notes the Jesus's disciples were, essentially, hippies, long hair, gowns, stoner expressions, irregular employment, spiritual convictions, dubious sleeping arrangements and a guru." (Wedding Presence)
• "They listened to a Cambridgeshire morning's unscored music: a tractor in a nearby field; cars; crows." (Wedding Presence)
• "Jasper felt what you feel after someone leaves the room." (Wedding Presence)
• "Birdsong is chromatic and glinting." (Wedding Presence)
• "The last track, 'A Day In The Life', was a miniature of the whole album, like the way that the Book of Psalms is a miniature of the whole Bible." (Wedding Presence)
• "Dean hated his dad, hated himself for not standing up to him, and hated his dad for making him hate himself." (Purple Flames)
• "If I can play ... it's because I practised in lieu of living. It's not a method I recommend."  (Purple Flames)
• "Dean never saw the point of church. 'God works in mysterious ways' seemed no different from 'Heads I win, tails you lose'."  (Purple Flames)
• "Marriage is a prison, funded by the prisoners."  (Purple Flames)
• "A dustcart drove by. Bare-chested bin-men clung to the side, one with an Action Man's physique, one with a darts player's." (Unexpectedly)
• "Burn the candle at both ends, and soon you've got no candle." (Unexpectedly)
• "Every lover is a lesson and Angus's lesson is that kindness is sexy." (Unexpectedly)
• "She's all nag, no shag." (The Hook)
• "Love's blind ... and is no fan of eye-doctors." (Last Supper)
• "Grief is the bill of love, fallen due." (Builders)
• "For a brief spell, we share a stage. Others are coming to kick us off. But while you're here, write yourself a good part. Act it well."  (Builders)
• "A soggy winter sky, like sodden toilet paper."  (Builders)
• "People say 'While there's life there's hope', but every saying has a B side and this one's is 'Hope stops you adapting to a new reality'." (Roll Away the Stone)
• "Elf's father and Mrs Sinclair exude uncertainty about what to exude." (Even the Bluebells)
• "Small talk, thinks Elf, is Polyfilla you fill cracks with so you don't have to watch them widening." (Even the Bluebells)
• "Grief is a boxer, my sister's a punchbag, and all we can do is watch." (Even the Bluebells)
• "When he played, he forgot he was a scared dropout wasting away in a psychiatric facility in the Netherlands. When he played, he was a servant and a lord of Music." (Sound Mind)
• "Unfortunately, Dean now realised, unwritten contracts have as much fine print as the written variety."  (Look who it isn't)
• "The word 'faster' is becoming a synonym of 'better'. As if the goal of human evolution is to be a sentient bullet." (Chelsea Hotel #929)
• "Do you ask a book for permission before you read it?" (Who shall I say is calling?)
• "The world has too many mystics and too few scientists." (Who shall I say is calling?)
• "Elf considers how the metaphor of life as a journey underplays how the traveller herself is changed by the road." (What's Inside What's Inside)
• "Disaster is rebirth, seen from the front. Rebirth is disaster, seen from behind." (What's Inside What's Inside)
• "You know how ... when you go abroad, you learn more about where you're from than where you're visiting?" (What's Inside What's Inside)
• "Labels ... They're easy to use. They save you the bother of thinking." (What's Inside What's Inside)
• "Art's made by artists, but artists are enabled by a scene." (What's Inside What's Inside)
• "If ethics aren't grey, they aren't really ethics." (Timepiece)
• "The only people who actually live in dreams are people in comas." (I'm a stranger here myself)
• "A girl walks by, leaving a trail of herself in her slipstream." (The narrow road to the far west)

This is such a good book that, having borrowed it from the library, I am now going to buy a copy for my shelves.

April 2022; 561 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God