On July 15, NPR Music’s Bob Boilen was joined by writer and musician Mikel Jollett, author of Hollywood Park, to discuss his New York Times bestselling memoir. Hollywood Park beautifully, painfully details the author’s journey from a troubled childhood – poverty, emotional abuse, addiction and an escape from the notorious Synanon cult – to the discovery of his voice as a writer and musician.
During this live, virtual event, Bob and Mikel discussed both the book and its companion soundtrack by Mikel’s band, The Airborne Toxic Event. Mikel and his bandmate, Miriam Peschet, also performed some of the songs that align with the stories in his written memoir.
Attendees were invited to join the conversation in the live chatroom on YouTube.
Courtesy of Celadon Books, you can listen to the first chapter of Hollywood Park or download it to read.
NPR is committed to hosting events that are accessible to all. Please contact us at nprpresents@npr.org with any accessibility concerns.
Mikel Jollett is the creator and frontman of the indie band The Airborne Toxic Event. Prior to forming the band, Jollett graduated with honors from Stanford University. He was an on-air columnist for NPR's All Things Considered, an editor-at-large for Men's Health and an editor at Filter magazine. His fiction has been published in McSweeney's. Hollywood Park is both the name of the sixth album by the band and the title of Jollett's debut memoir, for which the record functions as a soundtrack.
Bob Boilen is the host of NPR's All Songs Considered and the creator of NPR's Tiny Desk concert series. He began working at NPR in 1988 and previously directed All Things Considered for nearly 20 years.
Bob usually attends hundreds of (in-person) concerts and music festivals a year. A musician himself, Bob's music can be heard for free on his website.
His first book, Your Song Changed My Life, was published in April 2016 by HarperCollins.