Publishers Weekly
★ 12/23/2019
In this arresting debut memoir, Jollett, frontman of the indie band Airborne Toxic Event, writes of escaping a California cult named Synanon—where he lived in the 1970s until age five—with his mentally unstable mother and older brother. He recalls his impoverished, lonely youth; his family’s struggles with addiction; his challenging relationship with his parents; and the ways music and therapy saved him. Synanon started out as a commune and a drug and alcohol treatment facility (Jollett’s father was treated there for heroin addiction) but became a cult when the facility’s leader became more domineering and began forcing parents and their children to live in separate locations. While there, Jollett and his brother were left in the care of various cult members and rarely saw their parents. Jollett engagingly narrates his story, which includes living, after leaving Synanon, in Oregon with his mother, a needy narcissist who brainwashed him into believing that kids take care of their moms, not the other way around; loving his father while hoping to never be like him; and dealing with his addict brother. Jollett also talks about turning pain into music, getting help for abandonment issues, and finding love and starting a family. All this results in a shocking but contemplative memoir about the aftermath of an unhealthy upbringing. (May) Due to a production error, this review originally published without its star.
From the Publisher
"Loyalty, raw love, and a poetic voice."
—Good Housekeeping, "Best Books of 2020"
"A memoir that is dangerous, immediate and lyrical from the jump"
—The Wall Street Journal
“A Gen-X This Boy’s Life...Music and his fierce brilliance boost Jollett; a visceral urge to leave his background behind propels him to excel... In the end, Jollett shakes off the past to become the captain of his own soul. Hollywood Park is a triumph."
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“Mikel Jollett Changes the Memoir Form”
—Maris Kreizman , LIT HUB’s SHELTERING Podcast
“Jollett’s story serves as a potent reminder that while we cannot change the hand we’re dealt, our freedom lies in what we choose to do with those cards.”
—Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game, THE MILLIONS
"Mikel Jollett, the front man of indie band Airborne Toxic Event, chronicles his tumultuous life. Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction and emotional abuse. What comes through the pages is a story of fierce love and family loyalty."
—Good Morning America, 20 Books We're Excited for in 2020
"A painstaking emotional accounting of a tortured youth ultimately redeemed through music, therapy, and love."
—Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW
"The frontman of rock band Airborne Toxic Event chronicles, in gorgeous and exacting lyricism, his harrowing coming-of-age within (and eventual escape from) the Church of Synanon, a violent religious cult."
—O, The Oprah Magazine, The 30 Most Anticipated Books of 2020 (so Far)
“Jollett engagingly narrates his story...result[ing] in a shocking but contemplative memoir about the aftermath of an unhealthy upbringing.”
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
"...Engaging and heartbreaking. A good choice for fans of memoirs about overcoming dysfunctional childhoods like Educated and The Glass Castle."
—Booklist
"Mikel Jollett’s gripping memoir starts with a harrowing escape from a cult where he was raised without parents, only to be thrown into a more chaotic world where he’s raised by them. With a childhood defined by neglect, poverty and uncertainty, Jollett’s story serves as a potent reminder that while we cannot change the hand we're dealt, our freedom lies in what we choose to do with those cards. Hollywood Park is an illuminating and redemptive account of one man’s search for meaning, family, and love."
—ADRIENNE BRODEUR, author of Wild Game
"Violent and tender and incandescent, Hollywood Park is as touching as it is shocking. Jollett deftly dissects his struggle to unburden himself of the damage he inherited from his broken family, with insights that are brutally honest and psychologically astute. It tore me apart."
—JANELLE BROWN, New York Times bestselling author of Watch Me Disappear and Pretty Things
“Hollywood Park is amazing. Mikel Jollett takes the shards of a broken childhood – imagine a life where escaping from a violent cult is somehow not a path to safety – and makes it a universal story of the struggle to find connection in a brutally beautiful world. His story zigs where you think it’s going to zag, and even the most irredeemable characters somehow surprise us with their tenacity. It’s a complicated story with a simple payoff: this is how the light gets in, this is how an artist gets made.”
— GLEN DAVID GOLD, author of Carter Beats the Devil
“Hollywood Park is the often heartbreaking, always honest story of a confused boy struggling to make sense of a crazy world. It’s filled with pain, poverty, and violence but also with surprising love, rock and roll, and unexpected triumphs.”
— DARIN STRAUSS, NBCC-winning author of Half a Life
“This is a memoir, but it’s also a song—a lyrical labyrinth that weaves and mesmerizes, all the while proving there’s nothing more dangerous or powerful than a parent’s love. Hollywood Park is a magical debut. Loved it.”
— BRAD MELTZER, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Escape Artist
“Hollywood Park is full of moving portraits of Jollett’s brother, his father, and his band of contemporaries. To read these pages is to love them right along with him.”
— SEAN WILSEY, author of Oh the Glory of It All
Library Journal
★ 04/01/2020
In this first book by writer/musician Jollett, front man of indie band Airborne Toxic Event and on-air columnist for NPR's All Things Considered, readers are brought into his childhood in Synanon, a cult that initially attracted his parents before they found themselves disillusioned. Jollett eloquently writes about years of being constantly left alone with his thoughts while his dad tried to turn his life around after spending time in prison and his mom, who lived with severe depression and alcoholism, sought to find a father figure for her two sons. Moving chapters describe the emotional toll of Jollett being forced to become a caretaker for his mom as her mental illness intensifies, and accompanying his dad to the Hollywood Park race track. Jollett is at his best when exploring his complicated relationship with his brother; drifting apart as children and forming a stronger bond as adults, especially after the author becomes the first person in his family to attend college. He concludes with how music, and writing, became outlets for masking feelings of shame and coming to terms with the past. VERDICT Jollett's absorbing memoir of self, discovery, and rediscovery will have a wide audience.—Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal
APRIL 2020 - AudioFile
Musician Mikel Jollett is the tender voice of this harrowing memoir of a tumultuous coming-of-age. In a low, earnest tone he recounts the difficult moments of his childhood spent in a well-known California cult called Synanon and his adolescence as a cult escapee. Listeners will hang on every word, especially in the early chapters, which take place during his childhood. Jollett is very giving as he presses on in a raspy voice, sharing details of poverty, deprivation and drugs. Fans of his music will appreciate the short bursts at the beginnings and ends of chapters. The musical interludes soften the harsh realities he recounts as listeners celebrate his resilience. M.R. 2021 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2020-02-26
A painstaking emotional accounting of a tortured youth ultimately redeemed through music, therapy, and love.
In his debut, Jollett, the frontman for the indie band Airborne Toxic Event, opens the narrative in an orphanagelike facility in California when he was introduced to a strange woman who had come to take him away. “I remember that a 'Mom' is supposed to be a special thing....She tells me I’m her son and she wanted kids so she would not be alone anymore and now she has us and it is a son’s job to take care of his mother,” he writes. Both the author's parents were members of Synanon, a drug-recovery program–turned-cult that took children from their parents when they were 6 months old. After their release from captivity, Jollett and his brother grew up in extreme poverty in rural Oregon. Their mother's distorted view of the parent-child relationship made her almost completely useless as a caretaker; her terminally alcoholic boyfriend was the boys' only reliable source of either physical sustenance or affection. For the first third of the book, the author attempts to portray the world, and the English language, as he perceived it at age 5 and 6. His troubled mother had “deep-russian.” She hated “Thatasshole Reagan.” Another escapee from the cult was beaten by goons and developed “men-in-ji-tis” in the hospital; he thought about sending the cult leader a “sub-peena.” This becomes tiring, and since Jollett's mother was ultimately diagnosed with a personality disorder, the level of detail and repetition with regard to her maternal failures is overdone. The author's father, though an ex-con and former addict, is the story’s hero; he is beautifully written and lights up the book. In fifth grade, a friend introduced Jollett to the Cure. The Smiths and David Bowie were not far behind, and the teenage portion of the book, during which he often lived with his father in Los Angeles, is a smoother read. Ultimately, as he lucidly shows, music would change his life.
A musician proves himself a talented, if long-winded, writer with a very good memory.
