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A rock-ish life inside and outside a cult

By George Pelletier - Milford Bureau Chief | May 30, 2020

The timing of the release of “Hollywood Park,” a memoir about redemption by Mikel Jollett, seems untidy – considering that the author is the frontman for the indie band Airborne Toxic Event. That, however, can be put aside. Jollett narrates his remarkable and unsettling tale of being born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, Synanon, a California, church-like commune and his struggle to learn the true meaning of family.

“We were never young. We were just to afraid of ourselves.” So, begins Jollett’s heartbreaking account of living in fear and wonder until he was the age of five. In that sad and lonely existence, the musician writes about a confused childhood, where the best you could was never ask questions and bury your pain. In the ’70s, both of his parents were members of Synanon, a drug-recovery program-turned-cult that flourished from 1958-1991, and per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Mikel and his older brother Tony, were separated from their parents when they were six months old and handed over to the cult’s “school.”

Jollett had a complex relationship with his ex-con father, Jimmy, a former heroin addict; his mother, Gerry, who crafted their escape, was barely a ‘mom’ to her sons. Clinically depressed, she’d later convince Mikel that it was he who should care for his mother and not the other way around.

The first chapters cover the escape, and Jollett spins the darkness of being a frightened kid. The memoir is replete with misspellings and made up words. It’s sometimes distracting, but that stream of consciousness ultimately lends itself to the book and its earnestness.

Articulate and shocking, Jollett eventually redeemed himself through music, and love, past his youth filled with poverty, emotional abuse and the lure of drugs and alcohol. Jollett speaks in a raw and poetic tone. As a child, he never knew what having a normal mom and dad was like. He didn’t even know what a cheeseburger was.

In the end, Jollett’s father becomes the story’s real hero. Written beautifully, Jollett often lived with his father during his teens. It was then that he discovered music and the British rock and goth band the Cure, and later The Smiths and David Bowie’s Thin White Duke and Ziggy Stardust.

Music and Jollett’s own sheer brilliance were his saving graces. He writes of his visceral urge to overcome his past. He graduated with honors from Stanford University in 1996. He now lives in Silver Lake, California, with his wife and two kids.

In the end, old habits might die hard, as Jollett never completely shakes his ragged genes. Of his dad, he writes, “A man can be all these things at once, in one lifetime: a prisoner, a drunk, a pirate, a fool filled with regret sitting alone in a dark cell, a pair of strong shoulders bouncing in the surf.”

Named after the racetrack where his father would often take him, “Hollywood Park” is an odyssey from fragile child to spirited rock star, of turning pain into music. At times disturbing, this book is ultimately a contemplative memoir about the aftermath and the life after.

HOLLYWOOD PARK

AUTHOR

Mikel Jollett

PUBLISHER

Celadon Books

PRICE

$27.99

PAGES

384

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