Hollywood Park

Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was a fan of The Airborne Toxic Event before I started reading this, and this just made me love them more. Jollet tells the story of his life in an amazingly self-aware and candid manner. His story about growing up in and escaping from a cult could be sensational enough, but also dealing with the aftermath of what the separation from his parents did to both him, his brother, and his parents and how they deal with it is compelling. Jollet is a gifted song-writer and his prose doesn't disappoint. The fact that he was able to shape his story into a satisfying, revealing narrative makes this one of the best memoirs I've read.

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It's a strange word, F-A-M-I-L-Y.  It's big and comforting and each letter is different. Just look at it.  The F is for father right there at the front.  The M for mother is in the middle, connecting all the others.  It's a long word but usually people say it in one breath, like "famly" as if the I doesn't matter.  Without the F it's just an "ambly," a thing that ambles around from place to place.  Without the M it's just a "Fably"which is a story about something that does not exist. 

That's probably why we put people in containers when they die: coffins, urns, mausoleums--to give physical shape to the absence.