Mikel Jollett is known worldwide as the frontman of indie rock band The Airborne Toxic Event, but in his debut memoir Hollywood Park you will come to know him in an entirely new and deeply personal way. Jollett was born to parents who were part of Synanon, a commune dedicated to helping rehabilitate those addicted to drugs which, over time, morphed into a controlling and violent cult. Raised there for his first few years, he knew no other world, had no concept of what a mother, a father, or a family were in the traditional sense of these terms. After his mother fled Synanon with him and his brother, however, life did not necessarily become easier as one might expect.
Exploring issues of addiction, mental health, and much more, Jollett looks objectively at his childhood, how he was raised, and his relationship with his parents in this detailed account of his life. He depicts the lasting impact of childhood trauma, sparing no details and intimately sharing the abuse and neglect he experienced in his formative years. Raised primarily by his mother as a younger child, Jollett was led to believe that the role of a son was to support and care for his mother, that Synanon was not a bad place, and that he was lucky to have the life he did, despite his feelings that things were not quite “right.” As he grew older, however, Jollett moved to live primarily with his father and his worldview shifted profoundly as he transitioned from an environment where his feelings were minimised or completely dismissed to an unexpectedly loving and nurturing home with a father who wanted a better life for his son than he had himself.
Jollett transparently shares his exploration of self and journey to determine what he wanted out of life as he grew into adulthood, while also deconstructing the generational trauma and cycles of addiction inherent in his family. With the assistance of a therapist, he came to realise that his mother had significant mental health issues. He learned to understand the neglect and abuse he experienced and how it shaped him. And perhaps most importantly, he embraced the fact that this did not have to shape his life going forward. Jollett also speaks to the invaluable positive influences which moulded the man he has become: the music that was a beacon to him from a very young age, his mother often playing records for the children; the friendships developed and fused by a shared love of icons like David Bowie and The Cure; even a love for great literature. Jollett’s process of working through feelings of anger, loneliness, pride, and confusion to better understand his family and himself is inspiring. And as he did so, not only did music aid him with this journey of becoming more vulnerable and self-aware, but it also urged him forward to follow his dreams and ultimately settle into who he was meant to be, finding great success with his band The Airborne Toxic Event.
Hollywood Park contains some of the best writing of any memoir you will read this year — it is simply mesmerising! Jollett’s language and style evolves flawlessly as he grows older across his narrative, as his understanding of and insight into what he has experienced in his life deepens. He has a remarkable way of weaving words together to convey the simultaneous beauty and pain of life so sharply that you will be unable to put this book down.
Hollywood Park is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore! Many thanks to Celadon Books for providing the advance copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Also be sure to check out the new album from The Airborne Toxic Event, also titled Hollywood Park, which serves as a soundtrack to the story told in Jollett’s memoir.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Hollywood Park is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer.
We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves. No one told us who we were or what we were or where all our parents went. They would arrive like ghosts, visiting us for a morning, an afternoon. They would sit with us or walk around the grounds, to laugh or cry or toss us in the air while we screamed. Then they’d disappear again, for weeks, for months, for years, leaving us alone with our memories and dreams, our questions and confusion. …
So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett’s remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s “School.” After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother. But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic.
In his raw, poetic and powerful voice, Jollett portrays a childhood filled with abject poverty, trauma, emotional abuse, delinquency and the lure of drugs and alcohol. Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry older brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled step-fathers and longing for contact with his father, a former heroin addict and ex-con, Jollett slowly, often painfully, builds a life that leads him to Stanford University and, eventually, to finding his voice as a writer and musician.
Hollywood Park is told at first through the limited perspective of a child, and then broadens as Jollett begins to understand the world around him. Although Mikel Jollett’s story is filled with heartbreak, it is ultimately an unforgettable portrayal of love at its fiercest and most loyal.
