Daisy Jones & The Six: A Novel - book cover
  • Publisher : Random House Publishing Group; Reprint edition
  • Published : 04 Feb 2020
  • Pages : 400
  • ISBN-10 : 1524798649
  • ISBN-13 : 9781524798642
  • Language : English

Daisy Jones & The Six: A Novel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD! A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous breakup-from the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Malibu Rising, and Carrie Soto Is Back

REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • COMING SOON AS AN ORIGINAL STREAMING SERIES EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY REESE WITHERSPOON
 
"An explosive, dynamite, down-and-dirty look at a fictional rock band told in an interview style that gives it irresistible surface energy."-Elin Hilderbrand

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Washington Post, Esquire, Glamour, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, Parade, Paste, Shelf Awareness, BookRiot

Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it's the rock 'n' roll she loves most. By the time she's twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding 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 a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

Editorial Reviews

"I devoured Daisy Jones & The Six in a day, falling head over heels for it. Taylor Jenkins Reid transported me into the magic of the '70s music scene in a way I'll never forget. The characters are beautifully layered and complex. Daisy and the band captured my heart, and they're sure to capture yours, too."-Reese Witherspoon

"Backstage intrigue is the engine of Daisy Jones & The Six. . . . [A] celebration of American mythmaking."-Vogue

"Each character is compelling but Daisy Jones is the star. She's a blazing talent who is unapologetic in her sexuality and lives life on her own terms. . . . Like a poignant song with lyrics that speak to your soul, Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid will transport you to another place and time."-Associated Press

"Reid's wit and gift for telling a perfectly paced story make this one of the most enjoyably readable books of the year."-Nylon

"Wildly delicious." -Entertainment Weekly

"This stylish and propulsive novel, presented in the form of an oral history, explores the ascent of a (fictional) hard-partying, iconic 1970s rock band. It reads like the transcript of a particularly juicy episode of VH1's ‘Behind the Music.'"-The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"Daisy Jones & The Six is just plain fun from cover to cover. . . . Her characters feel so vividly real, you'll wish you could stream their albums, YouTube their concerts, and google their wildest moments to see them for yourself."-HelloGiggles

"[A] juicy tell-all-style page-turner."-Bustle

"Evocative . . . brilliant."-Romper

"Prepare to fall for Taylor Jenkins Reid's newest novel, Daisy Jones &...

Readers Top Reviews

Jingle57She Tread
I love the format of this book. I loved that it was during the seventies when I was a teen and lived in the days of “sex, drug, and rock ‘n roll.” If you aren’t interested in this era, or the music from that time, it may not be your book. But it was very engaging and so well written! I enjoyed every word!
Julie GallowayJin
As a lover of Rock n’ Roll, and someone that has Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” record album framed and hanging in their home, I have to say, I absolutely TREASURED this book.  It without doubt lived up to all of the hype. It gave me all of the 70’s band feels.  Taylor Reid’s writing technique of doing the book in oral history format, interview style, was so genius and unique.  It unquestionably MADE this book and was extremely successful.  I felt like I was transported back to the 70’s and was a friend of the band as I read and could not wait to find out what would happen next. This book gave us everything rock bands from that era gave us; sex, drugs, love, and a rock and roll.  I fell in love with Daisy and all of the band members. Oh how I wish this was a REAL band and “Aurora” was a real album.  We learn about Daisy in the beginning where she tells us, “that some people only want a piece of you.  I lost my virginity to somebody that…it doesn’t matter who it was.  He was older, he was a drummer.”  Daisy has parents that could care less about her.  She is young, and out alone walking the streets of L.A. on the Sunset Strip, going into bars, and dreaming of one day being able to sing and be a part of a band like the ones she watches perform.  Then there is Billy, a handsome, confident lead singer, who starts out as a drug addict but straightens his life out because he does not want to lose his wife Camila.  When Daisy and Billy collide, and start making music together, it is magical.  You can tell that they would make an amazing couple, but Billy is already committed to Camila. The book takes you on a roller coaster of emotions, the relationship between Daisy and Billy, and then the relationship between Billy and his wife Camila.  He tells us, “when you really love someone, sometimes the things they need may hurt you, and some people are worth hurting for.  Love is forgiveness and patience and faith and every once in a while, it’s a gut punch.  That’s why it’s a dangerous thing, when you go loving the wrong person.  When you love somebody who doesn’t deserve it.  You have to be with someone that deserves your faith and you have to be deserving of someone else’s.  It’s sacred.”  I think it is admirable that Billy stays devoted to Camila the entire book, even though it is more than obvious that he absolutely loves Daisy.  It is also almost unbelievable that he never relapses minus his one shot of tequila towards the end of the book.  The amount of strength it would take to be a part of a rock band in the 70’s, with everybody drinking and doing drugs and to not slip up and partake proves his love for Camila and his daughters.  Daisy makes mistake after mistake in her own life (including marrying a drug addict Italian prince) to ...
Lena Loves Booksa
This book was a crazy wild ride. It took me back to the days I use to sit around and devour Rolling Stone articles of my favorite bands. It has reignited my love for Rockumentaries. This book was innovative and entertaining. I loved and hated the characters but at the end I admired them all. I know this book is about Daisy Jones and the Six but the stand out character for me is Camelia. Forever Camelia! I highly recommend this book and highly highly recommend the audiobook. It adds another dimension to this already great story.
Theresa Gonsiorow
Daisy Jones and the Six - what a cool story set in the 70’s! This one was hard to put down and it was told in an interesting format. A story of rock and roll and everything in between. The characters were likable and as I read it I felt like I was sitting there while they were being interviewed. Definitely recommend!!

Short Excerpt Teaser

The Groupie

Daisy Jones

1965–­1972

Daisy Jones was born in 1951 and grew up in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, California. The daughter of Frank Jones, the well-­known British painter, and Jeanne LeFevre, a French model, Daisy started to make a name for herself in the late sixties as a young teenager on the Sunset Strip.

Elaine Chang (biographer, author of Daisy Jones: Wild Flower): Here is what is so captivating about Daisy Jones even before she was "Daisy Jones."

You've got a rich white girl, growing up in L.A. She's gorgeous-­even as a child. She has these stunning big blue eyes-­dark, cobalt blue. One of my favorite anecdotes about her is that in the eighties a colored-­contact company actually created a shade called Daisy Blue. She's got copper-red hair that is thick and wavy and . . . takes up so much space. And then her cheekbones almost seem swollen, that's how defined they are. And she's got an incredible voice that she doesn't cultivate, never takes a lesson. She's born with all the money in the world, access to whatever she wants-­artists, drugs, clubs-­anything and everything at her disposal.

But she has no one. No siblings, no extended family in Los Angeles. Two parents who are so into their own world that they are all but indifferent to her existence. Although, they never shy away from making her pose for their artist friends. That's why there are so many paintings and photos of Daisy as a child-­the artists that came into that home saw Daisy Jones, saw how gorgeous she was, and wanted to capture her. It's telling that there is no Frank Jones piece of Daisy. Her father is too busy with his male nudes to pay much attention to his daughter. And in general, Daisy spends her childhood rather alone.

But she's actually a very gregarious, outgoing kid-­Daisy would often ask to get her hair cut just because she loved her hairdresser, she would ask neighbors if she could walk their dogs, there was even a family joke about the time Daisy tried to bake a birthday cake for the mailman. So this is a girl that desperately wants to connect. But there's no one in her life who is truly interested in who she is, especially not her parents. And it really breaks her. But it is also how she grows up to become an icon.

We love broken, beautiful people. And it doesn't get much more obviously broken and more classically beautiful than Daisy Jones.

So it makes sense that Daisy starts to find herself on the Sunset Strip. This glamorous, seedy place.

Daisy Jones (singer, Daisy Jones & The Six): I could walk down to the Strip from my house. I was about fourteen, sick of being stuck in the house, just looking for something to do. I wasn't old enough to get into any of the bars and clubs but I went anyway.

I remember bumming a cigarette off of a roadie for the Byrds when I was pretty young. I learned quickly that people thought you were older if you didn't wear your bra. And sometimes I'd wear a bandanna headband like the cool girls had on. I wanted to fit in with the groupies on the sidewalk, with their joints and their flasks and all of that.

So I bummed a cigarette from this roadie outside the Whisky a Go Go one night-­the first time I'd ever had one and I tried to pretend I did it all the time. I held the cough in my throat and what have you-­and I was flirting with him the best I could. I'm embarrassed to think about it now, how clumsy I probably was.

But eventually, some guy comes up to the roadie and says, "We gotta get inside and set up the amps." And he turns to me and says, "You coming?" And that's how I snuck into the Whisky for the first time.

I stayed out that night until three or four in the morning. I'd never done anything like that before. But suddenly it was like I existed. I was a part of something. I went from zero to sixty that night. I was drinking and smoking anything anybody would give me.

When I got home, I walked in through the front door, drunk and stoned, and crashed in my bed. I'm pretty sure my parents never even noticed I was gone.

I got up, went out the next night, did the same thing.

Eventually, the bouncers on the Strip recognized me and let me in wherever I was going. The Whisky, London Fog, the Riot House. No one cared how young I was.

Greg McGuinness (former concierge, the Continental Hyatt House): Ah, man, I don't know how long Daisy was hanging around the Hyatt House before I noticed her. But I remember the first time I saw her. I was on the phone and in walks this crazy tall, crazy skinny girl with these bangs. And the biggest, roundest blue eyes you ever saw in your life, man. She also had this smile. Huge smile. She came in on the arm of some guy. I don't...