Ron Charles's Reviews > Utopia Avenue

David Mitchell’s groovy new rock novel belts out the lives of a fictional band in such vivid tones that you may imagine you once heard the group play in the late ’60s. Set in London when “new labels are springing up like mushrooms,” “Utopia Avenue” is a story of creative synthesis, one of those astonishing moments when a few disparate individuals suddenly fall into harmony and change the sound of an era. Mitchell — cult writer, critical darling, popular novelist — knows much about the unpredictable currents of fame, and he brings that empathy and his own extraordinarily dynamic style to this tale of four musicians.

One of the many delights of “Utopia Avenue” is seeing the cosmic dust of genius swirling in chaos before the stars are formed. On a dark day in 1967 when the novel opens, Dean Moss, a bass player, gets evicted from his apartment and fired from his cafe job. Across town, a folk musician nicknamed Elf has been dumped by her. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...