High On Arrival, Mackenzie Phillips
High On Arrival, Mackenzie Phillips
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

High On Arrival

Author: Mackenzie Phillips

Narrator: Mackenzie Phillips

Abridged: 5 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/23/2009


Synopsis

Mackenzie Phillips shares “a raw glimpse” (Entertainment Weekly) into her lifelong battle with personal demons and near-fatal addictions—and reveals the shattering truth behind her complex, secretive, and damaging history with her father, the legendary John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas.

Not long before her fiftieth birthday, Mackenzie Phillips made headlines with her arrest for drug possession at Los Angeles International Airport; the actor-musician-mother had been on her way to a reunion of One Day at a Time, the hugely popular ’70s sitcom on which she once starred as the lovable rebel Julie Cooper.

Born into rock-and-roll royalty, flying in Learjets to the Virgin Islands at five, making pot brownies with Donovan at eleven, Mackenzie grew up in an all-access kingdom of hippie freedom and heroin cool. As a rising Hollywood star herself, she joined the nonstop party in the hedonistic pleasure dome of her father’s making, and a rapt TV audience watched as Julie Cooper wasted away before their eyes. By the time Mackenzie discovered how deep and dark her father’s trip was going, it was too late.

As an adult, she has paid dearly for a lifetime of excess, working tirelessly to reconcile her wonderful, terrible past and the pull of her magnetic father. By sharing her journey toward redemption and peace, the star who turned up High on Arrival has finally come back down to earth—to stay.

About Mackenzie Phillips

Mackenzie Phillips is the daughter of John Phillips and stepdaughter of Michelle Phillips, both lead singers of the 60s band The Mamas and The Papas. She starred as Julie Cooper Horvath on the sitcom One Day at a Time alongside Valerie Bertinelli. Today, Phillips works at Breathe Life Healing enter in West Hollywood as a substance abuse councilor.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mary on February 26, 2010

Wow. This memoir was hard to read and hard to put down. Whatever may be going on in Ms. Phillips's life at the moment, or whatever may have motivated her to write this, I really felt like she was trying very hard to be truthful. I grew up during the same era and though my life wasn't the least bit l......more

Goodreads review by Laurel-Rain on October 18, 2009

"She's just fourteen Little movie star queen... She's always too high on arrival She runs on her high platform heels She falls flat on her face She knows how life feels And she's just fourteen." This excerpt from a John Phillips song sums up, in many ways, the journey of Mackenzie Phillips, from the star s......more

Goodreads review by Jeannie on February 01, 2011

I just finished this book with tears in my eyes and a big "Wow" in my head. Mackenzie Phillips life story is one of the bravest and most interesting memoirs I've ever had the honor to read. Truly inspiring, she is one amazing woman, there is no "poor, little pitiful me" anywhere in her book, it's to......more

Goodreads review by Yvonne on February 18, 2018

What a story this is. Mackenzie Phillips is the daughter of John Phillips, lead singer of The Mamas & the Papas. She is, also, a star in her own right on the hit TV sitcom “One Day At A Time”. I was a huge fan of both and still am. Mackenzie narrates this herself which makes it all that much more hea......more

Goodreads review by Lee Anne on September 26, 2009

If all the teen stars of my favorite childhood shows continue to write memoirs, I will continue to read them. Few will top this one, though. Mackenzie Phillips had a drug habit that makes Maureen McCormick's pretty severe cocaine addiction look downright recreational. Phillips has presented the seam......more


Quotes

"I felt many things while reading this book -- which I did in one overnight sitting -- but when I reached the last page I felt only one: a tremendous respect for its author and a deep appreciation of just exactly how courageous she is to publish this book.
This is no celebrity addiction memoir. And it is no 'former child star falls from grace' saga, either. It is the heart-wrenching and perilous story that thousands and thousands of perfectly ordinary women and men lived themselves, silently, numbly, and with obedience and love. By making her search for redemption public -- despite the inevitable backlash -- Mackenzie Phillips may very well help others find it for themselves.
Rich with compassion, forgiveness, and wisdom, this is a brave memoir executed with an unwavering loyalty and commitment to truth." -- Augusten Burroughs