presents
Hollywood Park: A Memoir Mikel Jollett. Celadon, $27.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-250-62156-6. Mikel Jollett Crafts a Heartbreaking Memoir of Staggering Growth; Buy this book. Mikel graduates from Stanford University. Photo courtesy of Mikel Jollett. “That’s part of why I called the book Hollywood Park. Part of it is that it’s a place—it was a racetrack—but it’s the idea of Hollywood, of playing your roles in your life,” says Jollett. “The theme of the book is about performing. 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. May 20, 2020 Mikel Jollett, frontman for the Airborne Toxic Event, isn’t playing much music these days. That’s partly because of the pandemic and partly because he has a new memoir out, “ Hollywood Park.” But. Join NPR Music's Bob Boilen for a conversation with Mikel Jollett, creator and frontman of the indie band The Airborne Toxic Event. The two will discuss Jollett's recent memoir and album – both titled 'Hollywood Park' – which explore Jollett's tumultuous youth. Add your questions in the live chat.
Hollywood Park:
A Memoir
Date8 | LocationJoin this virtual event by purchasing a ticket through Eventbrite | TicketsSOLD OUT. There will not be a standby line for this event. |
Join Mikel Jollett on his HOLLYWOOD PARK book tour: an exclusive, online event series. Mikel will discuss his remarkable life story, perform exclusive material from the new album, Hollywood Park, and have a Q&A with the audience. Tickets support Harvard Book Store and include a signed copy of the book. Private access links will be emailed the day of the event.
All tickets include one single-use login and one copy of Hollywood Park to be received via direct mail in late May.
About Hollywood Park
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. . .
Mikel Jollett Book
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, narcissistic 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.
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Overview
Hollywood Park: A Memoir By Mikel Jollett:
“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
'This moving and profound memoir is for anyone who loves a good redemption story.'
—Good Morning America, 20 Books We're Excited for in 2020
'Several years ago, Jollett began writing Hollywood Park, the gripping and brutally honest memoir of his life. Published in the middle of the pandemic, it has gone on to become one of the summer’s most celebrated books and a New York Times best seller...'
–Los Angeles Magazine
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.