BH: The Airborne Toxic Event (TATE) special VIP event at Upstate Concert Hall

The Airborne Toxic Event will be at the Upstate Concert Hall on June 17th. They are holding a special VIP event for 300 of their fans. Readers can pre-order HOLLYWOOD PARK online through our site or in store. You must buy a ticket from the venue and purchase the book from The Book House to gain entry to the VIP event-- you MUST purchase the book through THE BOOK HOUSE OF STUYVESANT PLAZA to gain entry to the VIP area. The VIP experience will include a book signing, a discussion of Hollywood Park, and a Q&A with the author. 

 

 On May 5, 2020 Celadon Books is publishing a literary memoir called HOLLYWOOD PARK by Mikel Jollett. Jollett is also the frontman of the popular indie band The Airborne Toxic Event (TATE).

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, 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.

Event date: 
Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - 12:00am to 11:45pm
Event address: 
The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza
1475 Western Ave
Albany, NY 12203
Hollywood Park: A Memoir By Mikel Jollett Cover Image
$27.99
ISBN: 9781250621566
Availability: SPECIAL ORDER--Call store for details
Published: Celadon Books - May 26th, 2020

Event Location Terms: