The Friday Afternoon Club
A Family Memoir
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4.3 • 438 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The instant New York Times bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME, NPR, People, Town & Country, and Air Mail
“Warm and perceptive.” —New York Times
“Griffin Dunne knows how to tell a story." —Washington Post
"Dunne is a prospector for the incandescent detail.” —Los Angeles Times
“What a remarkable and moving story filled with twists and turns, the most famous of faces, and a complex family revealed with loving candor. I was blown away by Griffin Dunne’s life and his ability to capture so much of it in these beautifully written pages.” —Anderson Cooper
Griffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan finds wicked humor and glimmers of light in even the most painful of circumstances
At eight, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At thirteen, desperate to hook up with Janis Joplin, he attended his aunt Joan Didion and uncle John Gregory Dunne’s legendary LA launch party for Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. At sixteen, he got kicked out of boarding school, ending his institutional education for good. In his early twenties, he shared an apartment in Manhattan’s Hotel Des Artistes with his best friend and soulmate Carrie Fisher while she was filming some sci-fi movie called Star Wars and he was a struggling actor working as a popcorn concessionaire at Radio City Music Hall. A few years later, he produced and starred in the now-iconic film After Hours, directed by Martin Scorsese. In the midst of it all, Griffin’s twenty-two-year-old sister, Dominique, a rising star in Hollywood, was brutally strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend, leading to one of the most infamous public trials of the 1980s. The outcome was a travesty of justice that marked the beginning of their father Dominick Dunne’s career as a crime reporter for Vanity Fair and a victims' rights activist.
And yet, for all its boldface cast of characters and jaw-dropping scenes, The Friday Afternoon Club is no mere celebrity memoir. It is, down to its bones, a family story that embraces the poignant absurdities and best and worst efforts of its loveable, infuriating, funny, and moving characters—its author most of all.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Griffin Dunne grew up in a family of storytellers. His father, Dominick, was a TV executive who became one of the first superstar true-crime writers, and his beloved uncle, John, was a screenwriter and novelist married to the iconic writer Joan Didion. Even when he was an adult, Dunne’s roommate and BFF was actress-turned-novelist Carrie Fisher. As a result, Dunne’s own successes (including starring in cult classics like An American Werewolf in London and After Hours) aren’t the focus in this arresting memoir. Full of dishy Hollywood gossip, hilariously embarrassing family stories, and genuine heartbreak, this is truly the story of Dunne’s family. In particular, Griffin’s younger sister, Dominique, murdered in 1982 by her ex-boyfriend just as her own acting career was taking off, dominates the book’s second half, just as his parents’ tempestuous marriage does the first. Bittersweet and powerful, The Friday Afternoon Club is one of the best celebrity memoirs we’ve read in ages.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
Customer Reviews
See AllHumorous and heartfelt
If you’re a fan of Griffin or any of his family you will enjoy this warm and funny story.
Engaging read
A good engaging read. Steady, captivating and enough to keep me coming back. Never riveting just an entertaining read. Gave me good insight to the life of people in Hollywood,
A memoir worth reading
Griffin Dunne has written a captivating, entertaining, often humorous memoir of growing up in a Hollywood family, trying to navigate a career as an actor, and family tragedy. He drops many famous names, but not in a self-aggrandizing, “fame by association” manner. But, rather, matter-of-factly, in the context of humorous vignettes. A significant, but not burdensome portion of the book deals candidly with the family tragedy. And his writing style is an excellent tribute to his journalistic family.