First published 2020
Mikel Jollett begins life in an experimental California commune that becomes the notorious Church of Synanon cult. At six months old, he and his older brother are torn from their parents and placed in the cult's institutional "School." Years pass in this makeshift orphanage before Mikel finally flees one morning with his mother and brother. Freedom brings new hardships. His clinically depressed mother struggles to provide for them. They sink into poverty. His angry brother torments him. Unstable stepfathers drift in and out of their lives. His father, a former heroin addict and ex-convict, remains a distant figure. Drugs and alcohol beckon as Mikel navigates delinquency and trauma. Through sheer determination, he claws his way to Stanford University and discovers his talents as both writer and musician. This memoir captures a childhood marked by abandonment and abuse, yet reveals how fierce family loyalty and love can survive even the most broken circumstances.
Genres: addiction, abuse, coming-of-age, autobiography, contemporary, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: California, Stanford University
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
384 pages · Hardcover · Celadon Books
Content warnings: abuse, addiction, child-abuse, depression, emotional-abuse, mental-illness