(And that you should def take with you on your next getaway)
The well-known novel Daisey Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid has been raved about pretty much everywhere. But I want to add my personal take on it.
It is a timeless tale that takes place in the erratic, wild 1970’s L.A. and grabs the reader onto a tour de force of one’s fears and aspirations, which is in short, the makeup of one’s soul. The documentary style of the narrative, which includes interviews with the band, gives it a non-fiction feel, but let me promise you, it’s a work of fiction.
The way the novel explores the psyche of Daisy and her band, in particular her relationship with Billy Dunne, the male protagonist of the novel and lead singer of the band, leads the reader to believe in the magic of love and it’s ability to transform the most ugly into utter beauty. While Daisy’s forbidden relationship with Billy is the backbone of this masterpiece, the purity of his love for his wife and family is the icing on the cake. It is a must-read work of art you cannot miss out on.
In an interview with Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine, Jenkins Reid said that she felt her portrayal of her fictional band was influenced mostly by the band Fleetwood Mac. Jenkins Reid explores the rise of the band to fame in the evolving music scene of 1970’s L.A. to worldwide fame and their split at the height of their success. This is the mystery that propels the plot.
Daisy is a girl coming-of-age in the late sixties in L.A., sleeping with rock stars, dreaming of singing at the Whiskey a Go-Go and sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip. She loves rock n’roll and the sex and drugs that go along with it. By the time she’s twenty, she is getting noticed for her talent, and she has the kind of beauty that makes people go crazy (i.e. Billy Dunne).
Another band getting noticed is The Six led by the gloomy Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant. And with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes wild on the road.
Daisy and Billy meet when a producer realizes the key to supercharged success is to put the two together on one stage. What happens next is the material legends are made of.
Another novel by Jenkins Reid is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which beautifully portrays 1950’s Hollywood.
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to let the world into her glamourous and scandalous life. She chooses an unknown magazine reporter, Monique Grant, for the job, no one is more shocked than Monique herself.
Monique is not exactly on top of her game. Her husband has just left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her stuck career.
Invited to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in admiration as the aging star tells her story. From making her way to L.A. in the 1950’s to her decision to leave show business in the 1980’s, and the seven husbands along the way. Evelyn’s life tells a story of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary Evelyn, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s in tragic and irreversible ways.
There is something in that golden Hollywood era that captivated me. The news articles that appear throughout the novel adto the sense of realism. And the novel as a whole is captivating.
The last novel I would like to review by this author is Malibu Rising.
Everyone is Malibu knows the four children of Mick Riva, a pop star with irresistible charm and worldwide fame. He enters and leaves marriages throughout his life with no second thought. To his credit, he managed to father four talented and beautiful children from his longest lasting marriage to a woman named June. A Malibu local, raised by the beach during the 1960’s when there weren’t any glamourous movie stars inhabiting the beach town. She was the daughter of a family who owned the local diner, serving mainly fried fish.
The first among those stable children is the altruistic Nina, who after her mother June’s death at merely 17, saved her brothers and sisters from the long reach of social services intervention.
June had died as a result of alcoholism, as she drowned in the bath tub when her kids were at sleep overs. She supported herself, when her husband was off to making a name for himself, by working and running her family-owned eatery Pacific Fish, which would be later renamed as Riva’s Seafood. The eatery is one of the novel’s touchstones, providing income and being the backdrop of pivotal scenes.
Not long after the birth of his first three children, one of whom by a woman other than June (although June is the woman the kid will eventually call mommy), Mick starts repeatedly getting distracted by beautiful women. Adding to a total of six marriages. He is a deadbeat dad and a terrible husband, but not a villainous character.
The novel takes course over one day, the day of Nina Riva’s annual party. It is August 27th, 1983. Throughout the novel there are illuminating flashbacks of the family’s history. At the beginning of the story Nina is freshly separated from her husband, a world famous tennis player, who takes after her dad in the womanizing department.
Surfing saves all siblings in this novel. Their passion for the sport grew outside o the shabby beach bungalow which they called home throughout their childhood. Nina is famous for being the surfing model, whereas her two brothers are famous in the surfing world. One is a champion surfer and the other is a successful surf photographer. Kit, the youngest sister of the Riva clan, is the unheralded best athlete of the surfing gifted foursome. She’s never been kissed at 20, and she keeps questioning her predicament.
Kit is quite shy and held back. Unlike her older sister, Nina, who is the most famous of them all. After being discovered surfing on the beach by a magazine editor, she starts a whirlwind modeling career, which supports her three siblings and herself and gets them all out of the financial pit they were in since losing their mom and being de-facto abandoned by their dad. She’s reluctant to become a model but since the restaurant is constantly losing money, Hud’s college tuition was rising, the roof of the bungalow was leaking and kit needed dental work, she agreed to be photographed for the magazine. Her magazine covers and the calendar she stars in become a sensation and Nina becomes a sex symbol despite her unwillingness.
Reid’s descriptions of what opts to be a Hollywood satire are a bit shallow, I must point out. A lot of superlatives are used to describe the party of the decade’s guests and it certainly takes away from the novel. But when mentioning the party one cannot stop being impressed by how decadent and spiraling out of control the descriptions are.
Hundreds show up for the party. Everyone from starlets to movie and TV stars, to writers, agents and producers. Coke is being served on platters like it were sliders or some other appetizer. Someone swings from the chandelier; another pees on
the Lichtenstein. But no one calls the police until someone fires a bullet into a mirror. Its not as a funny description as I assume the author meant it to be. Something about the mayhem inducing guests seems more pathetic than satirical.
Since the novel kicks off with the description of exactly how fire prone Malibu is, one keeps holding his breath throughout the party’s growing chaos, for some of the drug induced guests to start the foreshadowed fire.
By the end of the novel, the Riva siblings learn several hard-earned truths. They get to have an eye-opening sitdown with their long absent father. And even with the fire consuming the mansion (the home Nina never really called home), the reader knows the Riva foursome got the happy end they so desperately deserved.
Jenkins Reid is a wonderful author with a great eye for detail. Her ability to bring out the fakeness in Hollywood runs like a thread throughout these three novels. At some points, her work even feels like historical fiction rather than a figment of her imagination. Another aspect that I love about her work is the glitz and glamour she doesn’t spare the readers, always embedded in her work are descriptions of the characters’ clothing, their ability to showcase their attractiveness adds to the novel.
Taylor Jenkins Reid is the New York Times bestselling author of Carrie Soto Is Back, Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones and The Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
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