Hollywood Park

By: Mikel Jollett

Narrated by: Mikel Jollett

Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

The instant New York Times best seller.

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.

Mikel Jollett was born 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, forming the band The Airborne Toxic Event.

©2020 Mikel Jollett (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Most tragic, and beautiful story I've ever heard

This is officially my most favorite book of all time. It might sound strange, but it is so heartbreakingly beautiful. I could not stop listening. The way Mikel tells his own story gives you a sense that you are there with him, thinking and feeling the things he does. After listening to this, I am so excited to read anything he publishes in future, he has such a poetic way of telling stories that it is hard to put down. I was captivated from the moment I pushed play on this title. Highly recommend it if you are an Airborne Toxic Event fan, or if you just enjoy a really good autobiography.