IN THE SHALLOW

Amazon's Daisy Jones & the Six adaptation is the latest rock-'n'-roll saga to paint a superficial portrait of musical genius 

- JUDY BERMAN

ASK CHATGPT TO "WRITE A FICTIONALIZED biography of Fleetwood Mac in the style of an oral history," and the bot will respond with a flurry of hilariously realistic clichés about the "wild ride" that is rock stardom. "We were making records that people really connected with," says one imagined band member. "It was a wonderful feeling." Another observes that "the success was great, but it also came with a lot of pressure."

This uncanny-valley conversation could've been ripped from the pages of Taylor Jenkins Reid's 2019 novel Daisy Jones & the Six. Structured as an oral history and openly influenced by Fleetwood Mac's tumultuous romances, it traces the slow rise and abrupt combustion of a 1970s L.A. rock band. "I felt connected to them in a way that I hadn't felt connected to anyone before," Stevie Nicks analogue Daisy Jones recalls, of a crowd at one show. Hedonistic drummer Warren explains that being "at the top" isn't always fun because "that's when you've got the pressure."

With its unusual format, retro glamour, and characters both inspired by real people and generic to rock lore, Reid's book is a vibe, a mood, an aesthetic (Canyoncore?). Figure in the will-they-or-won't-they tension between Daisy & the Six's married leader Billy Dunne, and you'll understand its enormous appeal to the romance mavens of BookTok, who helped Daisy Jones sell more than a million copies. Now the book is back on best-seller lists in advance of a TV adaptation debuting March 3 on Amazon Prime Video.