Read: High on Arrival (#14-2022)

High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips

Mackenzie Phillips relates the story of the first 50 years of her life. Family, drugs, sexuality, television stardom, addiction and recovery are all central facets of the story and are interwoven in an intricate repeating pattern. Definitely a repeating pattern. The book is not entirely chronological, but it's possible that's because the person relating it doesn't know what that chronology would actually be. 

Obviously, because the book was released a significant time ago, I knew the basics of the content before I started reading. Nothing was going to be particularly surprising. I watched Mackenzie on One Day at a Time when I was young. I knew who The Mamas & the Papas were. I also knew Mackenzie, and most of her family, have struggled through drugs and addictions. 

I was very surprised by how disconnected she seemed to be from the events in her own life. She talks about how most of her life she remembers as if it happened to someone else and how this could be because of the drug use, or because she spent most of that time compartmentalizing and boxing away the emotions. It was still very surprising that when she chose to share the events with readers that she would do so with so much detachment. It was all just events.

The end of the book, the Afterword and the Postscript added in the version that I acquired held interesting information for me. I knew that because of the revelations in the book, Mackenzie had lost contact with a number of the members of her family. But putting those pieces together, hearing her family's explanations that she shouldn't have revealed her story because it was tarnishing her father's legacy and the legacy of the Phillips name, made me realize that John Phillips really was a cult-like figure for his family. Mackenzie never really said as much, but it seems very clear that his attention, and lack of attention, was intended to groom his children (and his wives/lovers) to set himself up as a god-like figure in their lives. Everyone wanted his attention, his approval, even after his death they craved it. And that's really what led to a lot of Mackenzie and her siblings' issues throughout their lives. John Phillips seemed to create his own following and then had no concern for their well-being unless and until he needed something from them. 

I would be interested to read John's autobiography, but it doesn't seem highly available, and I don't really want to waste my time or energy on sourcing and then reading the thoughts of someone who could be so damaging to so many people who he should have been nurturing. I'm glad that Mackenzie was able to work through a lot of her issues, but I'm sure she'll spend the rest of her life dealing with the repercussions of choices that she may not have actually had any options to make. 

(#14-2022)