Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid Page 0,115
thousand times
Can’t seem to break the wants free from my mind
So much of my world goes unnamed
Some people can’t be tamed
But maybe I should stake my claim
Maybe I should claim my stake
I’ve heard some hopes are worth the break
Yeah, maybe I should stake my claim
Maybe I should claim my stake
On the chance the hope is worth the break
Aurora
When the seas are breaking
And the sails are shaking
When the captain’s praying
Here comes Aurora
Aurora, Aurora
When the lightning is cracking
And thunder is clapping
When the mothers are gasping
Here comes Aurora
Aurora, Aurora
When the wind is racing
And the storm is chasing
When even the preachers are pacing
Here comes Aurora
Aurora, Aurora
When I was drowning
Three sheets and counting
The skies cleared
And you appeared
And I said, “Here is my Aurora.”
Aurora, Aurora
To Mindy Jenkins and Jake Jenkins
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I was really interested in telling a story about two people who had complex feelings for one another, but were also trying to create something together that was separate from what was going on between them. And I set it in the '70s because it feels like such an evocative time in L.A.’s history. The Sunset Strip during that time had the Southern California sound, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, the Laurel Canyon scene having Crosby Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, and the Mommas and the Papas all living in the same neighborhood. I got really excited by that, and so I know that I am in a good space creatively when I want to get lost in something. It seems to be a good time that other people want to get lost in too, so that’s where it started.
I’ve always been really fascinated by Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham and their relationship. And so, wanting to write about a band similar to Fleetwood Mac was absolutely part of it. The other part of it is that I became really taken with a band called the Civil Wars, which was a band of just two people—a man and a woman—and they sang these incredibly intimate songs, but they weren’t together. They were married to other people, but they broke up, randomly—just very abruptly one night and they won’t talk about it. They won’t go on record about it, and I was very fascinated with that. And I’d known some friends who are musicians and I’ve seen, from a very distant perspective, the way that art and collaboration with another person can blur lines sometimes: whether you’re collaborating solely in a creative way or if the romance is creeping into that.
Seventies rock is a fun space to tell a story in, but it is dominated by white males. I wanted to tell a story that felt authentic, but focused on the people I’m interested in writing about: women and women of colour. Daisy, the keyboardist Karen, Billy’s wife Camila, Daisy’s best friend Simone, a disco star very loosely based on Donna Summer – those were the most important characters for me. Making sure their experiences were the ones being centred was something I worked on draft after draft. A big part of this book is the idea that there are a lot of ways for a woman to be in a man’s world. Seventies rock is a male-dominated space, and there are women in this story finding their way through that space. Their relationship to each other and the way they affect one another’s lives was something I was very intent on from the beginning. These are not women that are fighting with each other. These are women who are very different from one another but are supporting each other in the right to be whoever it is they want to be.
To my incomparable rep team: You all are so good at your jobs and seem to do them with such passion that I feel as if I’m armed at all sides.
To the book bloggers who write and tweet and snap photos all in the effort of telling people about my work, you are the reason I can continue to do what I do.
Readers Club Guide
This reading group guide for Daisy Jones & The Six includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
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.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. This book is written in an oral history format. Why do you think the author chose to structure the book this way? How does this approach affect your reading experience?
2. At one point Daisy says, “I was just supposed to be the inspiration for some man’s great idea. . . . I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.” How does her experience of being used by others contribute to the decisions she makes when she joins The Six?
3. Why do you think Billy has such a strong need to control the group, both early on when they are simply the Dunne Brothers and later when they become Daisy Jones & The Six?
4. There are two sets of brothers in The Six: Eddie and Pete Loving, and Billy and Graham Dunne. How do these sibling relationships affect the band?
5. Daisy, Camila, Simone, and Karen are each very different embodiments of female strength and creativity. Who are you most drawn to and why?
6. Billy and Daisy become polarizing figures for the band. Who in the book gravitates more toward Billy’s leadership, and who is more inclined to follow Daisy’s way of doing things? How do these alliances change over time, and how does this dynamic upset the group’s balance?
7. Why do you think Billy and Daisy clash so strongly? What misunderstandings between them are revealed through the “author’s” investigation?
8. What do you think of Camila’s decision to stand by Billy, despite the ways that he has hurt her through his trouble with addiction and wavering faithfulness? How would you describe their relationship? How does it differ from Billy and Daisy’s relationship?
9. Camila says about Daisy and Billy, “The two of you think you’re lost souls, but you’re what everybody is looking for.” What does she mean by this?
10. As you read the lyrics to Aurora, are there any songs or passages that lead you to believe Daisy or Billy was intimating things within their work that they wouldn’t admit to each other or themselves?
11. What do you think of Karen’s decision about her pregnancy and Graham’s reaction to the news? What part do gender roles play in their situation?
12. Were you surprised to discover who the “author” was? How did you react to learning the “author’s” reason for writing this book?
13. What role does the reliability of memory play in the novel? Were there instances in which you believed one person’s account of an event more than another? What does the “author” mean when she states at the beginning, “The truth often lies, unclaimed, in the middle”?
14. What did you think of the songs written by Daisy Jones & The Six? How did you imagine they would sound?
15. If you are old enough to have your own memories of the 1970s, do you feel the author captured that time period well? If you didn’t experience the seventies yourself, what did this fictional depiction of the time evoke for you?
BY TAYLOR JENKINS REID
Daisy Jones & The Six
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
One True Loves
Maybe in Another Life
After I Do
Forever, Interrupted