Book Review : "Daisy Jones & The Six"

 

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Think Fleetwood Mac meets Almost Famous meets As The World Turns. This is the fictional story of a 1970's rock band called Daisy Jones & The Six. It's done in a faux interview format, which I liked because A) I grew up devouring CREEM magazine and Rolling Stone and any rock biographies I could find about my favorites, and B) because it shows what happens from multiple pov's, which sometimes contradict each other or see things from very different perspectives. It's an easy and engrossing read and I basically couldn't put it down.

There are several strong female characters and I especially enjoyed their takes on a lot of what went on in the male-privilege-gone-wild world of '70s rock n roll. I liked how the relationships in the book were all complicated in various ways, a trade-off of good and bad, just as relationships of any depth always are.

That's not to say there weren't annoying flaws. The ending toward which the whole book careens, comes with a whimper, not with a bang. And the where-are-they-now bit at the end was so cliche (Adopted orphan children? So '90s!) and the big reveal of who the interviewer is seemed forced and movie-of-the-week to me.

So, I enjoyed the book, it captured the scene as it was in that very memorable era, and so it entertained me but it didn't move me. The only time it really did that was as I read the included lyrics at the end and came to "Aurora", the title song of the band's mega-hit album. That got me, but it took until literally the last page. Recommended, but well short of must-read.

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Fox With A Feather

Fox with a feather

wait until dark.

Fox-brother with your clever face

calm the careless bird without a mark.

September is your gotten grace

fallen from a limb.

Remember when the keeper comes

to hide where he's just been.

Lonely is the blue light of the moon reflected so

upon the calm and silent bird roosting on the snow

without a song, with unlit eyes, its feathers pulled and dull

with sobriquet of red it gets from names your teeth bestow.

Fox with a feather

wait until dawn.

The keeper loads his gun to bless

the live ones on the lawn.

_______

for Sunday Muse #125.

Jingo Farm

 

blank-faced

yellow-haired

nourished by rain and rot,

they leave room for nothing else

save rats and borers

giddy with vicarious triumph.

Here is the butter-bland vision,

every bloom the same,

all weedy twist of grasping arms

cradling babbling seed-faces

with their cheap coronas.

Already dying,

their identical progeny prop them up,

unremarkable, 

invasive,

stone-stupid,

legion.

_____

for Flash 55

and Sunday Muse #123.

Cartography

I represent actual things

with a representation of those things.

Come in,

sit down.

I'll select posture, expression and language

like semaphore,

 an agreed-upon symbology

like mailing some version of myself

to some version of you.

Behold this Orinoco

made of ink;

this range

comprised of bumps.

Roll your fingers over them.

That, is real.

Let us fall in love

with what we seem to be.

Let us share a border

clear on charts but apocryphal on scene

where we may meet and express our confusion.

I am a cartographer.

I can tell you how far from here

 to there,

from where I am

 to where you are,

and at how many degrees

 longitude and latitutude

we can expect to find various landmarks--

happiness,

children,

retirement and so forth.

I am a cartographer;

come live with me

and be my love.

Some day,

I may write you a poem

throwing everything we depend upon

into chaos.

_________

for The Sunday Muse #122.

Following the Fathers

 Fathers' throats fill with wind.

Stars bay like lost dogs

defending the edge of the world

from the shriek of memory.

Take my hand.

It is made of Egypt and empty windows.

I build monuments

to sparrows with royal souls.

I am dead, blown to the borders

of everything I am and was.

This little hill of baubles

is yours now to sell or sew into the sleeves of poems.

Mothers, strangers, mute myths of shadow,

leave me in peace at last. 

I follow the fathers with their wind-throats

a girl again, sung to, willing to be fooled for a kiss.

_____

a second poem for Sunday Muse #121.

Think Fast

 

We come from clouds

and end in dirt.

In the time between,

a reeling dance,

a disappearing interval

where

panic

and 

ecstasy

look very much the same.

_____

for Sunday Muse #121 

Buck Moonskull, Private Eye

 Buck Moonskull, private eye

slugs down a spring water, heaves his hooves up on his desk, and coolly sizes up his client.

What a dame. 

Big "who, me?" brown eyes behind long lashes and a come-hither look. Buck laid odds they'd be sharing a salt lick before this case was over. 

"Jane Doe," she said when he asked her name.

"Sure, dollface." Did she think he was born yesterday? Why, it had to have been three years ago now. He watched a blush creep up that perfect face.

"I--" she began.

"Stow it, Toots," said Buck Moonskull, a little sharply. He didn't like being played with.

"I know who you are. I'm not the kind of flatfoot who can't see the forest for the trees." Buck picked up a cheap plastic folder and waved it. "Does the name Bambi mean anything to you, doll?"

"Where did you--"

"You're his mother. Don't bother to deny it. Oh sure, that faked death scheme paid off when Stag Antlersen copped the insurance money. I'm on to you sister."

A sly smile played around the edges of her kissable lips as she drew the .22 and purred, "So. You found out about Stag." She raised an eyebrow. "You're good, dear. But not good enough." She raised the gun and, as fast as a landlord on rent day, Buck Moonskull dipped his rack and knocked it away with a practiced swipe of a his 8 points.

"I must have been crazy to try to con a con," stammered Ms. Doe. 

"Lunacy," said Buck Moonskull as a gold halo of light shone above his head, like tacky foil on the neck of a bottle of drug store champagne. He picked up the black rotary phone from his desk and, gesturing with it, asked, "Do you want to come clean to Bambi, or do I put him straight myself?"

Jane Doe sighed, crossed her legs provocatively, and reached for the phone. In the middle of the dialer it said "Buck Moonskull. CLOverfield 5-2999." Watching her, he had a feeling that number would be ringing again soon.

_______

for Sunday Muse #120.