Daisy Jones & The Six is a fictional account of the rise and fall of a 70s rock band. They were the biggest band of that decade and this is the story of their break up, as well as their rise to fame.
The central relationship in the story is between the two main characters, Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne, with the most obvious inspiration being Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac). Jenkins Reid also drew inspiration from other female/male partnerships like The Mamas and the Pappas, Johnny Cash and June Carter, even Beyoncé and Jay Z. There is tension and it is this tension that informs the music.
Daisy Jones & The Six is written as an oral history, which is one of the ways that non-fiction stories are told. Jenkins Reid brilliantly uses this format to frame her narrative in a time where there was no social media to record events. Each character's name precedes their part—everyone is chiming in to tell their account of the events. Because this is a non-traditional type of narrative, sometimes their stories contradict.
In this novel, Taylor writes many types of women—there is not only one way to be a woman. Daisy, Camila, Karen, and Simone are all very individual with different goals. Daisy is beautiful and rich and doesn't care about the power that she wields because of it. She wants to be taken seriously as a lyricist (even though she has an incredible voice) and wants to be heard and valued for her contributions. Billy is also a lyricist that takes himself seriously, only he is widely-respected because he's a man, so everything comes easier to him. When they write an album together, there is a power struggle because they both need to be heard and Daisy needs to push for this to happen.
A woman's perspective is hugely important to Jenkins Reid and I think that this evident in all of her books—she wants to make women feel seen and heard. Traditionally 70s rock is thought of as a male-dominated space, but there were so many incredible women in that time period and Taylor wanted to celebrate these women and their contributions. She wrote Daisy Jones & The Six in part because of her love for Stevie Nicks, but to be clear, it is a not a story about Fleetwood Mac.
Reese Witherspoon's production company, Hello Sunshine, is turning Daisy Jones & The Six into a TV show with Amazon Studios. Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber—the Oscar nominated duo behind (500) Days of Summer, The Fault In Our Stars, and The Disaster Artist—are writing and producing the series.
This story was utterly mesmerizing and totally lived up to all the hype!
TAYLOR JENKINS REID is the author of the New York Times Bestselling novels Daisy Jones and the Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, as well as One True Loves, Maybe in Another Life, After I Do, and Forever, Interrupted. Her books have been chosen by Reese’s Book Club, Indie Next, Best of Amazon, and Book of the Month. Her novel, Daisy Jones and The Six, is is currently being adapted by Hello Sunshine into a limited series for Amazon.
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter, and dog.
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