Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid: With a Little Help from Reese Witherspoon

More than one author has said that point of view is one of the most crucial decisions a writer makes when crafting a novel. In this spring's "it" novel Daisy Jones & the Six, author Taylor Jenkins Reid alternates points of view of a wide range of characters. Occasionally readers are reminded that these are fragments of interviews, with the questioner out of sight, but the reading experience is more like an intimate glimpse into the lives as they unfold.

The plot develops as a successful band started by brothers Billy and Graham Dunne, but when their opening act Daisy Jones is brought into the band, the tensions are palpable. While Daisy and Billy compete not only for front man/woman for the band, they also have an equal role as protagonist of the novel. Set in the seventies, readers who lived through that music and culture could easily imagine Daisy Jones & The Six as a real band from the era. The drug culture and the sexual revolution are in full swing, but some of the members of the band are more susceptible to the negative effects.

One of the strongest characters in the novel, Billy's wife Camilla provides some light even in the darkest parts of the book. Knowing from the start that she was marrying a rock musician, she fights for her marriage and family, choosing hope and yet demonstrating incredible maturity and empathy.

Reid also presents a convincing look at the dynamics of songwriting, the give and take between two creative artists, Billy and Daisy, with strong wills but a love for their art. The scenes in the recording studio, as well as on- and off-stage performances and interaction between the band and their fans, are credible as well.

The opportunity to experience vicariously the creation of an album will make music lovers who grew up in that era feel a bit nostalgic about the days when we slit the plastic on a new album and slid out the liner notes reading every word.

Reese Witherspoon has highlighted the novel in her book club,  now I hear that she is involved with Amazon's plans for a limited series based on the book. We may be comparing the movie to the book the way we compare a video to the recording.

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid: With a Little Help from Reese Witherspoon

An American Marriage: Tayari Jones

I prefer to get my book recommendations from friends, book lovers I know and trust, not Oprah or Reese Witherspoon. And since I'd heard mixed reviews of An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, I was hesitant to start it.

Once I got started, though, I understood what all the hype was about. Jones has written a novel whose characters are many-layered. She follows that perfect formula for a novel in one way. Let the reader know the characters enough to care, and then get them into a lot of trouble. For Roy O. Hamilton, Jr., and his wife Celestial, the trouble--big trouble--comes just one year into their marriage.

Roy, a young black man who grew up in a small, poor Louisiana town first met his wife Celestial when they were in college in Atlanta. They were introduced by Andre, Roy's neighbor in his college apartment but Celestial's "boy next door" since childhood. They meet again in New York City when she's a rising artist and he's a young successful businessman with a bright future ahead. On a trip to visit his parents, one about which she had misgivings from the time they started out, Roy is falsely accused of a crime and sentenced to twelve years in jail.

Their time apart, particularly as Celestial's boutique business selling handmade dolls takes off, leaves Roy desperate for a lifeline to his former life. Told from the perspectives of Roy, Celestial, and Andre, the novel is beautifully written. Jones not only has a deft hand as she develops her complicated characters, but she uses the language so beautifully--without calling attention to the writing.

Jones also manages to deal honestly wth the plight of young African American men not only caught in the U.S. justice system but in the New South and the Old South, where their two world intersect. The book comes across as more than African American literature; it reads as an American story of an American marriage.

An American Marriage: Tayari Jones