Biggest bombshells from Josh Brolin’s new memoir ‘From Under the Truck’

Josh Brolin documents his life on and off the screen in his new memoir From under the truck.

Now the actor, 56, is a doting father of four and 11 years sober. But he has traveled a long way to get here. His new book, out on November 19, details his “unconventional childhood” and his rise to fame in blockbusters such as The Goonies and No country for old men.

Brolin also reflects seriously on his close relationship with his late, fearless mother Jane Agee Brolin and how her death affected him, as well as his experiences with addiction and fatherhood.

From tragically losing his best friend at a young age to the advice he got from famed director Steven Spielberg, here are the biggest bombshells from the book.

Never miss a story – sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Brolin’s best friend Danny died by suicide

Before Brolin was a movie star, he was a kid living in rural California. During a chapter in his book set in 1979, he wrote that when he was 11 years old, he had a best friend named Danny who was three years older than him. Despite being close, Brolin often felt that Danny carried a grudge against him all the way up to his tragic death.

“I mean, he loved me as much as we all loved each other when your nearest neighbor was at least a mile away, but there was always something extra that stuck with him about me,” he wrote.

That year, Bolin had moved away while Danny stayed, and would soon die by suicide. Looking back now, the actor noted that his friend was “disturbed, but not much more than the rest of us.”

One tragic night, on his father’s birthday, Danny “went into a rage” after finding out that his mother was not his birth mother. According to Brolin, the boy was drinking at the time and had retreated to his room to perhaps “sleep it off.”

“But when he woke up it was all still there: a reality of hell,” the actor continued. “He grabbed a .22 caliber rifle. We all had them. It was our idyllic pride flag. He loaded it. He walked out his bedroom door and turned the corner into the living room.”

Danny asked those in the room, “You think I’ll do it?” before pulling the trigger and shooting himself. “He was 14, a time when you just let kids be kids. We took turns pulling each other around the yard in the red wagon. We climbed trees. We walked miles to each other’s yards. We didn’t shoot ourselves, but he did,” Brolin lamented.

He felt “strange” to be a part of The Goonies

Brolin felt out of place when he starred The Goonies – which marked his acting debut at the age of 16. He recalled being picked up by a car and driven to an airport with his guardian to go away to film for a few months. There he met his co-stars – Sean Astin, Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman, Ke Huy Quan and Martha Plimpton – and other people from the production team.

“I can’t help but feel like I’ve done something right for the first time in my life,” Brolin wrote of the airport moment, “but it might also be a mistake that I’m here.” The actor went on to recall that he felt out of place with his colleagues, as many of them had already starred in other projects.

“It’s all very strange that I’m here with them, part of it,” he added. “I’ve never been a part of anything but with people no one else wanted to be a part of.”

Steven Spielberg gave Brolin some advice

In the cult classic, Brolin played the older brother Brandon “Brand” Walsh to Astin’s Michael “Mikey” Walsh. The two filmed their first scene together in October 1984, which was also Brolin’s first ever film experience. “The scene was touching and emotional, but around the fifth take we had a fit of laughter that I couldn’t control,” Brolin wrote.

Now, in retrospect, Brolin suspects that his behavior was due to his nerves. But at the time, he recalled looking at Spielberg – who co-wrote the script with Chris Columbus – and feeling he had his approval. “Steven Spielberg was on set and saw, and I think he liked it,” he wrote. “He smiled a little bit once. He told me to stay loose. I’ll remember that.”

Brolin’s mom almost got hitched with a producer on The Goonies

In March 1985, Brolin invited his mother Jane to join him when he finished filming The Goonies. The actor recalled feeling pressured to do so, writing: “She’s my mother and I’d be a bad son if I didn’t include her.” He asked her to keep a low profile, to which she said, “What am I supposed to do, nothing?”

A few days later, Brolin received a call from his mother saying that she was “going out” with people from the crew and one of the film producers proposed to her. The alleged meeting happened in her hotel room when the producer visited her, “dropped his pants and wanted to get at it.”

His mother denied the producer’s advances, telling him: “If you think I would f— someone wearing blue boxer shorts, you must be out of your mind.”

Afterward, Brolin claimed the producer called the young actor into his office and told him that his mother is “sick and that she may need help.” He stood up for his mother and told the producer, “Because she didn’t want to f— you?” He was then asked to leave his office.

He thought his son Trevor would not survive the birth

Brolin welcomed his son Trevor with his first wife, Alice Adair, in 1988. He recalled the traumatic birth in his memoir, writing that his son was “a dark blue” when he was born.

Brolin described the infant as “small, defenseless and limp.” The actor recalled the doctor patting the newborn on the back to help him take his first breath before moments passed and the doctor “looked up at a nurse and the nurse rushed out the door.”

“Something is seriously wrong,” he wrote. “Everyone has changed. There is panic. It is no longer a question.”

Brolin and Adair’s firstborn survived, and they later learned it was “just some mucus stuck in his throat that he didn’t want to let go yet.”

Brolin once went on a 12-hour acid trip that went bad

In 1981, Brolin took acid for the first time with his friends, resulting in a 12-hour trip. “It was as hopeful a day as I could have had,” the actor wrote. “Not only had I passed the cave that turned me from a boy into a man, but I had also thrived. I had arrived at what I thought was the beginning of a happier life.”

When he “came down after 12 hours, just as the sun began to set, I knew life was good and to be lived and experienced and tasted with a fully exposed, exposed tongue.”

However, everything was not always rosy regarding Brolin’s drug experiences. Later he had a nightmarish experience where he saw “epileptic faces, desperate children, rabid animals coming towards me.”

Brolin’s son Trevor disappeared while filming No country for old men

While Brolin was filming No country for old men in the summer of 2006, he received a phone call informing him that his son Trevor, who would have been about 18 at the time, was missing. He was told that Trevor went out with his friends the night before and never returned, and that two unidentified burn victims had been taken to a local hospital.

Brolin recalled feeling like he had “no control” over his body when he hung up. “I began to slip into visions of what it was like to have a son who would pass. This cannot be,” he wrote.

From there, the actor called hospitals in Los Angeles to see if his son had emerged, but he had no luck. “They all had a death,” he recalled.

Brolin ended up finding his son at the last hospital he called, where Trevor was “fine” and recovering from alcohol poisoning.

Brolin gave an explosive speech after praising Milk

In 2008, Brolin starred in the biographical drama Milk – based on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk – alongside Sean Penn. The role earned him a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Brolin recalled walking the red carpet, “where a few pictures were taken: my arm heavy around Sean’s shoulders; another of me yelling something at the photographers, and several of me looking behind me at something that probably wasn’t there.”

The actor also gave an expletive-filled speech while accepting his award, despite being warned against it by his agent.

“The wine started talking about other actors, about certain writers. Words like mother—er and piece of s— rolled off my tongue and onto a growing din of shock and disgust,” he wrote. “There I was in my perceived and so temporary pulpit with all eyes on me, pontificating about how I looked at awards and how I ‘didn’t give a f— about the people who doubted me or tried to delete me.’ ”

In the aftermath, Brolin recalled, “A few people clapped softly. My publicist didn’t and instead looked at the ground. Sean smiled a friendly smile, just like your brother would while you’re being wheeled back into traumatic surgery.”

From under the truck by Josh Brolin is available now wherever books are sold.