Hollywood Park: A Memoir
Mikel Jollett, 2020
Celadon Books
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250621566
Summary
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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 21, 1974
• Where—Santa Monica, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Mikel Frans Jollett is an American musician and author, best known as the frontman for the Los Angeles-based indie rock band the Airborne Toxic Event. In 2020, he published his memoir, Hollywood Park, detailing his early childhood in an infamous religious cult and his eventual journey to wholeness.
Early life
Jollett's father spent three years (1963-66) in Chino State Prison. where he overcame a heroin addiction. Jollett's mother was a social worker with a master's degree from University of California Berkeley. The couple met and started a family in Synanon, an experimental commune society in Santa Monica, California. Jollett and his older brother were born and raised there, spending a large part of their time separated from their parents. Once the commune turned to violence, his mother left when he was five, taking his brother and him. They eventually made their way to Oregon.
Jollett later went to live with his father and step mother in Los Angeles. He attended Stanford University, graduating with honors in 1996. While at Stanford, Jollett was a member of Claude Steele's lab group in which he conducted research on the concept Stereotype Threat. His work focused on how negative racial stereotypes negatively affected the identity and test performance of high school students.
Writing
In the summer of 2008, McSweeney's (27) published Jollett's short story, "The Crack." He was a frequent contributor to All Things Considered on NPR, the Los Angeles Times, an editor at large for Men's Health, and the managing editor of Filter magazine. By 2005 Jollett decided to pursue music a career in music.
Music
Jollett began seriously writing songs following a week in March 2006, during which he underwent a break-up and learned his mother had been diagnosed with cancer. This quick succession of events spurred a period of intense songwriting featured on the debut album of his band, Toxic Airborne Evenet.
True to his literary roots, Jollett named the band after a section in Don DeLillo's White Noise, in which a chemical spill emits a poisonous cloud, dubbed an "airborne toxic event." The band went on to achieve a considerable following, with "Sometime Around Midnight," one of the songs on their debut album achieving certified gold status.
Personal
Jollett and his wife Lizette have a son and a daughter and live in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/28/2020.)
Book Reviews
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
Oprah Magazine
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 ("20 books we're excited for in 2020").
Good Morning America
(Starred review) [A]rresting…. Jollett engagingly narrates his story… [and] talks about turning pain into music, getting help for abandonment issues, and finding love and starting a family.… [A] shocking but contemplative memoir about the aftermath of an unhealthy upbringing.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Jollett is at his best when exploring his complicated relationship with his brother… [and] how music, and writing, became outlets for masking feelings of shame and coming to terms with the past. [An] absorbing memoir of self, discovery, and rediscovery.
Library Journal
Engaging and heartbreaking. A good choice for fans of memoirs about overcoming dysfunctional childhoods like Educated and The Glass Castle.
Booklist
A painstaking emotional accounting of a tortured youth ultimately redeemed through music, therapy, and love.… 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.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for HOLLYWOOD PARK … and then take off on your own:
1. In the opening lines to his memoir, Mikel Jollett says, "we were never young." What does he mean?
2. Why did Jollett's parents join Synanon? What were they looking for, and what did the cult promise its members?
3. (Follow-up to Question 2) Describe the practices at the commune and what eventually drove Mikel's mother to leave.
4. Talk about the aftermath of the cult and the affect it had on the family, especially on Mikel. Consider, too, his relationship with his older brother, Tony.
5. Jollett's mother, Gerry, was hardly an ideal mother. Did she love her sons? Eventually she was diagnosed with a mental disorder. Were you surprised?
6. At the age of 11, Jollett goes to live with his father, who, he had been told by his mother, was a terrible person. What did he learn about Jimmy? What role does Jimmy come to play in Mikel's life?
7. How did Jollett's upbringing affect the way he related to women—but not just to women, to many, if not most, people? What was the facade he erected, and why was he hiding behind it?
8. Jollett ponders the pain engendered by his trauma. He writes, "How long can you live with ghosts before deciding to become one?" What does he mean? How does he confront those ghosts? What mental processes does he journey through in order to overcome his past?
9. What role did music play in Jollett's journey through pain? What insights does he gain into his own emotional state which helped him understand his life?
10. (Follow-up to Question 9) Do you think painters, writers, performers, and musicians, use their creativity as a way to explore and/or express their personal pain?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)