Utopia Avenue


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

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 Janis Joplin, David Bowie, Jerry Garcia, Leonard Cohen, Syd Barrett, Jimi Hendrix, Jackson Browne, Brian Jones, John Lennon, Allen Ginsberg, Francis Bacon, Joni Mitchell, Steve Winwood, Keith Moon, Sandy Denny and Marc Bolan.

Main characters

;Utopia Avenue
Utopia Avenue contains references to characters from other works by Mitchell, following precedents set in his earlier novels.
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.
Writing for The Guardian, Sarah Perry praised Mitchell's "consciously easeful and frictionless" prose.
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."
Publishers Weekly gave the novel a rave review, calling it "Mitchell at his best."
Writing for The New Yorker, Jonathan Dee felt the novel's "authenticity" was diminished by Mitchell's musical descriptions and undermined by unrealistic dialogue from the cameo characters.