“Utopia Avenue” is – mostly – a different type of book from David Mitchell.

Mitchell is best known for time- and genre-bending novels.

“Cloud Atlas” included a variety of writing styles to tell a story stretching from the distant past into the distant future with each segment interlocked with the previous section then back again.

In “The Bone Clocks,” Mitchell constructed a mystical mystery told through the lifespans of various characters.

“Utopia Avenue” is a more straight-forward story. Its impetus is forward, with only a little chronological swapping within each chapter. 

Musicians come together to form a rock band called Utopia Avenue. The story is firmly rooted in its late 1960s time period with Mitchell sprinkling in cameos by David Bowie, Jerry Garcia, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin and others.

Mitchell carves out a fully formed niche for his up-and-coming rock band. The novel feels like a non-fiction, behind-the-scenes look at the rise of a real British rock band such as The Beatles or the Rolling Stones as the Utopia Avenue characters scramble to find their sound, to balance their distinct talents, to weigh the early days of fame and the possibilities of fortune against the lives they have always known.

One episode in the book will strike readers unfamiliar with Mitchell’s work as bizarre. Even regular Mitchell readers may find the story behind Jasper’s mental difficulties jarring within the context of this otherwise traditional novel. Though regular Mitchell fans will quickly grasp the connection between Utopia Avenue bassist Jasper de Zoet with title character of previous Mitchell novel, “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.”

“Utopia Avenue” has a contagious feel to it. Readers are drawn into the pages and the lives of Mitchell’s characters. The only regret – not being able to hear the band’s fictional music, though Mitchell creates a vibe that makes that music almost audible within the turning of the pages.