The Friday afternoon club A family memoir

Review by Booklist Review

Readers of actor and producer Dunne's first book will find themselves often flipping to its stunning black-and-white cover photo. Among its dozen faces are a teenage Dunne; his striking mother, Lenny; his writer father, Dominick; Dominick's writer brother and frequent feuding partner, John; and John's wife, Joan Didion. One little face belongs to Dunne's younger sister, Dominique, whose murder at 22 would devastate and redefine the family. All their stories and more make up Dunne's captivating memoir of celebrity from all sides, which is beyond entertaining, honest in confronting heartbreaks and jealousies, often genuinely funny, and somehow understated. Dunne recalls staggering personal stories about a who's-who of famous people in the Dunnes' orbit alongside his own coming-of-age, early career turns, and the crushing experience of attending the trial for his sister's killer. It's a testament to his talent that his legacy doesn't weigh the book down. Instead, Dunne's storytelling is buoyant, his prose crisp; he's most definitely a writer, too. This clear-eyed, heartfelt memoir ends with the birth of Dunne's daughter in 1990; readers will hope for future books.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

After Hours actor Griffin recounts in his bittersweet debut how movies, madness, and murder have touched his celebrated American family. Dunne presents his recollections as a colorful ensemble piece starring his accomplished relatives, including his father, Dominick, who torpedoed his career as a Hollywood producer by insulting a powerful agent, then became a famous novelist; his mother, Ellen, who carried on several affairs; his brother, Alex, a brilliant writer; his sister, Dominique, an actor who costarred in Poltergeist; and his uncle and aunt by marriage, authors John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion. The narrative is a swirl of parties, crude jokes, and sharply etched celebrity cameos, including a pre-fame, pot-smoking Harrison Ford, still working as a carpenter ("His stuff was so strong that after one toke I couldn't tell the difference between a saw and a tape measure"), and a magnificently bratty Carrie Fisher. But there are darker currents, too: Dominick's closeted homosexuality; Ellen's diagnosis of multiple sclerosis; Alex's intermittent psychosis. Anchoring the book is an account of 22-year-old Dominique's death by strangulation, and her ex-boyfriend John Sweeney's subsequent conviction on a relatively minor manslaughter charge. Dunne's writing is vivid, openhearted, and full of a rich irony that inflects even the most emotional scenes, as when he recalls an extra on the set of the gangster spoof Johnny Dangerously offering to have his mob associates kill Sweeney. The result is a raucously entertaining homage to an unforgettable dynasty. Agents: David Kuhn and Nate Muscato, Aevitas Creative Management. (June)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Successful actor/director/producer Dunne is the oldest son of journalist and victim rights' activist Dominick Dunne (1925--2009) and the nephew of novelist/essayist Joan Didion (1934--2021). In this searing and powerful memoir, readers learn about the author's troubled childhood and adolescence. After dire experiences at two boarding schools, he headed for New York with dreams of becoming a successful actor. While he looked for work, his friend and roommate Carrie Fisher filmed Star Wars. His sister, Dominique, created the titular Friday Afternoon Club when she became an actor; in addition to Griffin, she would invite her friends to the club, including a young George Clooney. Griffin Dunne got a foothold in film by producing several movies and eventually starred in An American Werewolf in London and After Hours, which he also coproduced. Everything changed in 1982, when Dominique, age 22 at the time, was murdered. The court convicted her ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney, on a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter. The tragedy changed the family and the course of Dominick Dunne's career, inspiring him to become a crime reporter. VERDICT Raw and painful to read at times but compelling in its honesty, this memoir about the Dunnes will appeal to movie and true-crime fans.--Penelope J.M. Klein

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A moving memoir from the actor and producer. Conventional wisdom says we cannot choose family or fate. In this tribute to his famous family, Dunne (b. 1955) reminds readers to love family and do the best with what fate sends along. Bookended by the shocking murder of his sister, Dominique, and the birth of his daughter, Hannah, the narrative retraces the author's history, offering colorful snippets of life in an intriguing, privileged milieu. In Dunne's fascinating world, his father, writer and investigative journalist Dominick Dunne, swaps acrimonious barbs with literati brother and sister-in-law, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion ("Joan was a 'serious writer,' Dad ex-plained to his children, 'not like the hacks' he'd hired to write at Four Star [Television]"). Carrie Fisher is a confidante--"best friends become best friends suddenly, and without knowing that's what's happening until it happens"--and celebrities drop in for parties and dinners. Despite the glamorous backdrops in California and New York, the author portrays a family whose core human experiences make them universally relatable. Dunne is candid about his father's demons and substance abuse, which stoked the embers of a tumultuous marriage. He compassionately chronicles his mother's battle with multiple sclerosis, and he gently examines the sibling dynamics between the three Dunne children (one of whom is mentally ill, and to whom he dedicates the book). Dunne also chronicles his own slow climb toward fame, an ascent he has navigated on his own terms. The tragedy of Dominique's murder looms throughout, and the author capably describes stepping into two of the most challenging roles of his life to date: filming Johnny Dangerously while simultaneously supporting his family in their quest for justice for Dominique. A poignant love letter and evidence that through it all, genuine love is the backbone that keeps a family strong. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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The morning I was born, Dad was a wreck. Having gotten Mom safely to Doctors Hospital, he was told that she required an emergency C-section, and to sit in the waiting room until he was called. Five hours later, he'd gone through a pack of Luckies, and after making a nuisance of himself to every nurse who passed, he went to buy more smokes at a deli across the street. Walking back to the lobby, he saw the surgeon who was to perform the C-section about to step into a cab. He ran to him and practically grabbed the doctor by the lapels. "What happened?" "What do you mean, what happened?" "My wife! Is she all right?" "Which one is your wife?" "Lenny Dunne, for God's sake!" "Oh, Mr. Dunne, my apologies, didn't anyone tell you?" "Tell me what?" "We did the C-section hours ago. She's fine. Baby's fine. Someone should have told you, but it's been a crazy day. I've done three since." More relieved than pissed, Dad let the man get in his taxi. Before it pulled away from the curb, the doctor yelled out the window, "Oh, and don't worry about the foot!" On the long walk back to the maternity ward, Dad pictured me growing up in a wheelchair or with a prosthetic leg, but while my right foot did curl inward when I was a newborn, it turned itself out by the time I could walk. From the moment I was born, my father told me I was always trying to get somewhere else. My first word was taxi . I had a toy suitcase that I'd carry around the living room and raise my hand to hail a cab, yelling, "Taxi, taxi," as if late for an important meeting. Elizabeth Montgomery, who later played Samantha in Be- witched , was my first babysitter. She was a struggling actress with a small part in Late Love when she met my mother, and though Elizabeth was her employee, my mother and she became close friends. Elizabeth once told her, while changing my dia- pers, that I had a bigger dick than her husband. That marriage was, needless to say, short-lived. There is a kinescope from an early episode of the Today show in which Arlene Francis, also from the cast of Late Love , interviews my mother, billed as the "typical New York house- wife," while a camera follows her on a routine day. (The daugh- ter of a rancher who went to Miss Porter's was hardly a relatable housewife, but somehow Dad got her the gig through his con- nections at NBC.) There wasn't much content in the early days of morning talk shows, so this segment is a mundane, fifteen- minute blow-by-blow of the life of a young family. It begins with Dad heading to work like a character out of a John Cheever story, while Mom does household chores, runs errands, and takes me to Central Park to feed the ducks. At one point in the clip, she enters a shoe store on Lexington Avenue and leaves me in my pram on the sidewalk, as if we lived in Grover's Corners. When she tries to lay me down in my crib at the end of the day, I nuzzle into her neck, not wanting her to leave. Anyone tuning in that morning would have seen a little boy who loved his mother more than anything in the world. When the camera cuts back to Mom in the studio, having just watched the segment she narrated, she looks lost in the moment, as if still savoring my affection. Arlene Francis ends the interview by saying to her viewers, "We wish Lenny, Nick, and Griffin all the luck in the world as they begin their bright future." As it turned out, we were going to need it. Excerpted from The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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