Utopia Avenue

Last updated

Utopia Avenue
Utopia Avenue (David Mitchell).png
First edition cover (UK)
Author David Mitchell
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre Historical fiction
Publisher Sceptre
Publication date
14 July 2020
Media typePrint (hardcover), e-book, audiobook
Pages576
ISBN 978-1-4447-9942-2 (hardcover)
OCLC 1121136308
823.92
LC Class PR6063.I785 U86 2020b

Utopia Avenue is a 2020 novel by David Mitchell. It is his eighth published novel, and his first since Slade House (2015). It was published by Sceptre on 14 July 2020. [1] The novel tells the story of the fictional 1960s British psychedelic rock band Utopia Avenue. [2]

Contents

Synopsis

The novel follows the fictional rock band Utopia Avenue, formed in Soho, London, in 1967. They were assembled by their Canadian manager Levon Frankland as a "psychedelic-folk-rock" supergroup. Each chapter name is the title of a song and focuses on one of the members of the band. It features cameos from David Bowie, Jerry Garcia, Leonard Cohen, Syd Barrett, Jackson Browne, John Lennon, Allen Ginsberg, Francis Bacon, Joni Mitchell, Steve Winwood, Keith Moon, Frank Zappa, Rick Wakeman, Cass Elliot, Sandy Denny and Marc Bolan, as well as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Jim Morrison, and Brian Jones; the latter five, coincidentally, all members of the 27 Club.

Composition

Mitchell noted in an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books that he wanted to escape the archetypal plot of the rock'n'roll novel, commenting that his band is more "harmonious than dysfunctional" and that "[m]ost of the characters' estrangements from 'normal life' and family occurred before the band's ascent, not during." [3]

Main characters

Allusions/references to other works

Utopia Avenue contains references to characters from other works by Mitchell, following precedents set in his earlier novels. As Mitchell's oeuvre grows, the connections between his works become more numerous, ranging from the explicit that link the novel to what might be called his overarching über-book, [4] to subtle recurrences of characters, places, and events. Some of the more apparent connections are:

Reception

At the review aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the novel received a cumulative "Positive" rating based on 25 reviews: 10 "Rave" reviews, 9 "Positive" reviews, 4 "Mixed" reviews, and 2 "Pan" reviews. [7]

Writing for The Guardian , author Sarah Perry praised Mitchell's "consciously easeful and frictionless" prose. [8]

In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews praised Utopia Avenue for its detail and realism, calling it Mitchell's most "realistic" novel since Black Swan Green (2006). [9]

Publishers Weekly gave the novel a rave review, calling it "Mitchell at his best". [10]

Writing for The New Yorker , writer Jonathan Dee felt the novel's "authenticity" was diminished by Mitchell's musical descriptions and undermined by unrealistic dialogue from the cameo characters. [11] Ben Yagoda draws attention to a number of cases where American characters implausibly use expressions found only in British English. [12]

Awards and nominations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheep's Head</span>

Sheep's Head, also known as Muntervary, is the headland at the end of the Sheep's Head peninsula situated between Bantry Bay and Dunmanus Bay in County Cork, Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Mitchell (author)</span> English novelist and screenwriter (born 1969)

David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist, television writer, and screenwriter.

<i>Ghostwritten</i> 1999 novel by David Mitchell

Ghostwritten is the first novel published by English author David Mitchell. Published in 1999, it won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was widely acclaimed. The story takes place mainly around East Asia, but also moves through Russia, Britain, the US and Ireland. It is written episodically; each chapter details a different story and central character, although they are all interlinked through seemingly coincidental events. Many of the themes from Ghostwritten continue in Mitchell's subsequent novels, number9dream and Cloud Atlas, and a character later appears in The Bone Clocks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jasper (given name)</span> Name list

Jasper is a masculine given name commonly believed to be of Persian origin, meaning "treasurer". The etymology of the given name Jasper is unrelated to that of the gemstone jasper.

<i>Black Swan Green</i> 2006 semi-autobiographical novel written by David Mitchell

Black Swan Green is a semi-autobiographical novel written by David Mitchell, published in April 2006 in the U.S. and May 2006 in the UK. The bildungsroman's thirteen chapters each represent one month—from January 1982 through January 1983—in the life of 13-year-old Worcestershire boy Jason Taylor. The novel is written from the perspective of Taylor and employs many teen colloquialisms and popular-culture references from early-1980s England.

<i>Twilight</i> (Meyer novel) First novel in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight is a 2005 young adult vampire-romance novel by author Stephenie Meyer. It is the first book in the Twilight series, and introduces seventeen-year-old Isabella "Bella" Swan, who moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to Forks, Washington. She is endangered after falling in love with Edward Cullen, a 103-year-old vampire frozen in his 17-year-old body. Additional novels in the series are New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

A ghostwriter is a person who writes under someone else's name with their consent. Celebrities often employ ghostwriters to produce autobiographies.

<i>New Moon</i> (novel) Second novel in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer

New Moon is a 2006 romantic fantasy novel by author Stephenie Meyer. The second installment in the Twilight series, the novel continues the story of Bella Swan and her relationship with vampire Edward Cullen as she enters her senior year of high school. When Edward leaves Bella after his brother attacks her, she is left heartbroken and depressed for months until Jacob Black becomes her best friend. However, her life twists once more when Jacob's nature reveals itself and Edward's sister decides to visit.

Kenji Jasper is an American writer and journalist. He has worked in writing and journalism for over 20 years.

<i>Eclipse</i> (Meyer novel) Third novel in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer

Eclipse is the third novel in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. It continues the story of Bella Swan and her vampire love, Edward Cullen. The novel explores Bella's compromise between her love for Edward and her friendship with shape-shifter Jacob Black, along with her dilemma of leaving her mortality behind in a terrorized atmosphere, a result of mysterious vampire attacks in Seattle.

The non-fiction novel is a literary genre that, broadly speaking, depicts non-fictional elements, such as real historical figures and actual events, woven together with fictitious conversations and uses the storytelling techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwise loosely defined and flexible genre. The genre is sometimes referred to using the slang term "faction", a portmanteau of the words fact and fiction.

<i>Third and Indiana</i> Novel by Steve Lopez

Third and Indiana is a novel written by Steve Lopez about the experiences of several people connected to 14-year-old Gabriel Santoro, while living in the dangerous gang-controlled streets of the Badlands section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The novel gave notoriety to Third Street and Indiana Avenue, a real-life intersection in the Fairhill area known for the prevalence of drug dealers. The first printing had 50,000 copies printed. Published in 1994, it was Lopez's first novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sceptre (imprint)</span> Imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

Sceptre is an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, a British publishing house which is a division of Hachette UK.

<i>The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet</i> Book by David Mitchell

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is an historical fiction novel by British author David Mitchell published by Sceptre in 2010. It is set during the Dutch trading concession with Japan in the late 18th-century, during the period of Japanese history known as Sakoku.

Paul Harding is an American musician and author, best known for his debut novel Tinkers (2009), which won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2010 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, among other honors. He is currently the director of the Creative Writing and Literature MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, as well as Interim Associate Provost of Stony Brook University's Lichtenstein Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Candy Gourlay</span> Filipino author based in the United Kingdom

Candy Gourlay is a Filipino journalist and author based in the United Kingdom whose debut novel Tall Story (2010) was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

<i>The Bone Clocks</i> 2014 book by David Mitchell

The Bone Clocks is a novel by British writer David Mitchell. It was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2014, and called one of the best novels of 2014 by Stephen King. The novel won the 2015 World Fantasy Award.

<i>Perfidia</i> (Ellroy novel) 2014 novel by James Ellroy

Perfidia is a historical romance and crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy. Published in 2014, it is the first novel in the second L.A. Quartet, referring to his four prior novels from the first L.A. Quartet. Perfidia was released September 9, 2014. A Waterstones exclusive limited edition of Perfidia was released September 11, 2014, and includes an essay by Ellroy himself titled "Ellroy's History – Then and Now." The title, Perfidia, is Italian for the word perfidy, and is also the name of the big band song, Perfidia.

<i>Slade House</i>

Slade House is the seventh novel by British novelist David Mitchell. Slade House originated as a Twitter story which was then developed into a full novel, and is a companion to The Bone Clocks. Set between the late seventies and the present, the novel explores the mysterious Slade House and a number of characters who are drawn to it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrice Lawrence</span> British writer and journalist

Patrice Lawrence MBE, FRSL is a British writer and journalist, who has published fiction both for adults and children. Her writing has won awards including the Waterstones Children's Book Prize for Older Children and The Bookseller YA Book Prize. In 2021, she won the Jhalak Prize's inaugural children's and young adult category for her book Eight Pieces of Silva (2020).

References

  1. "Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell". Hodder & Stoughton . Hachette UK . Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  2. Simon, Scott (11 July 2020). "'Utopia Avenue,' The Greatest Sixties Band That Never Was". Weekend Edition Saturday . NPR . Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  3. Murray, Mitch R. (11 September 2020). "Thinking Polyphonically: A Conversation with David Mitchell". Los Angeles Review of Books . Archived from the original on 13 November 2020. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  4. "Interview with David Mitchell". Goodreads. 9 September 2014. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  5. "Interview with David Mitchell". Goodreads. 9 September 2014. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  6. 1 2 "On reappearing characters | Waterstones.com Blog | Waterstones". www.waterstones.com. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  7. "Book Marks reviews of Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell". Book Marks . Literary Hub . Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  8. Perry, Sarah (10 July 2020). "Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell review – a musical journey". The Guardian . Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  9. "Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell". Kirkus Reviews . 15 March 2020. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  10. "Fiction Book Review: Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell". Publishers Weekly . 9 April 2020. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  11. Dee, Jonathan (29 June 2020). "What Happens When David Mitchell Writes a Rock Novel?". The New Yorker . Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  12. Yagoda, Ben (14 December 2021). "Still More Anatopism!". Not One-Off Britishims. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  13. "2021 Winners". Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence . 18 October 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2021.