Mikel Jollett was born into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children 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. Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled stepfathers 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.