In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote: "I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. After another stint in Japan, he currently lives in Ireland with his wife Keiko and their two children. He lived for a year in Sicily, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England.
This review is available to non-members for a limited time.David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent, studying for a degree in English and American Literature followed by an M.A. I was truly saddened on reaching the novel's conclusion, knowing that I'd never again encounter these new friends. I can honestly say I can't remember another book where I so completely fell in love with the characters, even though each is flawed (some more than others) and at times behaves unwisely. The core of the novel is the characters as they grow and change, each learning about who they are and what they want out of life. Everything you'd expect to encounter in a book about the 1960s is present – the drugs, parties, sex, anti-war riots, elevation of rock stars to near godlike status – and yet it's so skillfully portrayed that the setting feels entirely fresh, if not revelatory. Its time period seems a little too recent to label it "historical fiction," but it has all the hallmarks of a truly outstanding historical fiction novel nonetheless. Utopia Avenue defies easy categorization.
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