The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

Truth be told, I had a bard time picking up the book. I didn’t want to smudge the rose color glasses I remembered Griffin with, my first love and the boy who gave me my first kiss. He was adorable. I still have his early literary masterpieces of love letters where he poured out his heart to me each vacation from boarding school. I have yet to get any better ones from anyone else. In ninth grade, I had no idea of the background he was from nor did I care. I loved him. He went onto another boarding school across the country, time fades, and His handsome best friend was still in town and I wound up finishing this first love tumble in a horrible relationship with him. Back to the book, I really can’t put it down. It is a wrenching look at an illustrious, not even close to average, American family. This is a clever, eccentric family who took Hollywood by the proverbial horns, rode it and rose in it- with many incarnations and tragedies that come with the fame. Both father and son had their fare share of ups and downs. I did not know the full story of his murdered sister which really rips your guts out. It would have destroyed the best of us. Griffin takes off the rose colored glasses to give us an unflinching and funny look at his quirky family. He is a darn good writer. He is as likeable today and funny as the book suggests. He is very well thought of Hollywood and just like his mom, had social grace and manners to spare. The book is on my bedside table waiting to be devoured again and for me to be mind-blown by its many twists and turns. This must have been exhausting for him yet unburdening of years of anguish. He has been keeping this gem in his mind vault for years. Thankfully he released this Kraken of a story for all of us to see. Great and brave job old friend, bravo!

Griffin Dunne’s book is subtitled “A Family Memoir”, and that it very much is. He starts his story with the tale of his grandparents before moving on to his parents, Ellen “Lenny” Beatriz and Dominick Dunne. If that name is familiar, it’s because he became quite famous as a writer for Vanity Fair and published novelist. Griffin’s uncle, John Gregory Dunne, was also a writer but his fame was eclipsed by that of his wife, Griffin’s aunt Joan Didion. Though Griffin was born in New York, his father’s work in the entertainment industry resulted in an early move to Los Angeles, where he and his siblings Alex and Dominique were raised. It was a wild childhood. His parents occasionally brought him along to adult parties or allowed him to make brief special guest appearances at their own to-dos…including a Black and White Ball that Truman Capote thought was such a clever idea he stole it for himself. He became lifelong best friends with a girl in the neighborhood his brother had developed a nascent crush on, who turns out to be Carrie Fisher. Smart but not academically inclined, Griffin struggled in school until he found acting, but a disciplinary incident led him to drop out of school entirely. If you know much about his family from general popular culture, you know what the book is building towards and what hangs like a cloud over the recounting of light-hearted youthful antics like hitching back from Colorado to California or working the popcorn booth at Radio City Music Hall. His sister, Dominique, also an actor, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend when she was only 22 years old. The trial of her killer took place during the peak of his success in acting, and he recounts the relief of being able to lose himself in a role when his life was full of such tumult. He closes with meeting his first wife, Carey Lowell, and the birth of his daughter Hannah. Dunne’s life is certainly interesting enough to support a memoir, even without recounting his later years, which has included directing Practical Magic. As the parent of a young child, thinking about him growing up the way Dunne did is bananas. It was a different era, but thinking about an elementary-age kid wandering around a party where people are high on coke is…not what I’m planning to do. That a privileged kid was hitchhiking and hanging out regularly at a little scuzzy diner in the wee hours of the morning with sex workers feels very odd from today’s perspective. Apparently skill with words has at least some genetic component, because Dunne’s writing is engaging. His portrait of Carrie Fisher and their friendship is moving for all of the zany shenanigans they got into, and you can feel that he still misses her dearly. He writes about his parents with a clear-eyed sympathy, acknowledging their struggles and demons without letting them entirely off the hook for the mistakes they made. And his depiction of the toll his sister’s death took on his family is heartbreaking, all the more so for not indulging in sentimentality. It does feel almost a little unfinished, his romance with Lowell is not lingered on and after his daughter’s birth it just kind of ends. If you like Hollywood gossip, there’s a lot here for you, or even if you’re just interested in a true story about a deeply dysfunctional family trying to figure out how to be people together. I liked it and would recommend it.

As the title says: I'm a HUGE fan of Griffin Dunne. In the summer of 2017, I watched the John Landis film AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981). I was enthralled with the film's narrative about grief and loss and survivor's guilt, as well as with its three attractive leads. Shortly after, I watched the 1994 film QUIZ SHOW, and recognized the Geritol Account Executive on the phone. I looked him up after my viewing of the film, and was amazed by the life and career he's had. Finding out just HOW many things he was connected to in showbiz was staggering and surreal. It felt like the equivalent of linking a string of murders to one serial killer. Not unlike his guest appearance on LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT. A real-life Zelig figure! This research led me down a rabbit hole that included his entire filmography, newspaper archives, and vintage magazine purchases off of eBay. By 2018, I had enough material to start a fanpage on Tumblr, and then on Instagram in 2020, during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Needless to say, I was psyched to read an advance copy. It was everything I expected and more! Griffin had such an unusual childhood, growing up at the epicenter of mid-century Hollywood, that some have even gone as far as to call him a name-dropper when he talks about it. If you've seen even a fraction of the photographs featured in his father Dominick's book, THE WAY WE LIVED THEN, you would know that Griffin is telling the truth. That really WAS his life! For those who don't know much about Griffin or his life, THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB is an excellent place to start. And yet, even for a die-hard fan like myself, I came away with some new and surprising information. In life, tragedy can quickly turn our lives into 'Before' and 'After' categories. Naturally, the book is also divided into two parts: the murder of Griffin's sister, Dominique, at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney. Up until FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the only other written account from Dominique's family came from father Dominick, for Vanity Fair in his breakthrough article, 'Justice'. What's unique about Griffin's book is that it's, by far, the most humanized account of Dominique that I've ever read. With a high-profile case, far too often the crime itself overshadows what the victim was like before their time was cut short. From Griffin, I learned about Dominique's sweetness, her love for animals who loved her right back, and how she was a 'foodie' long before the term was coined. I also learned how a family can grow much closer in the face of an awful tragedy. How they can howl with laughter at the most inappropriate times, to keep themselves from crying. And how even a domestic violence victim, who came from an immensely privileged background, can be so thoroughly screwed by the justice system. The biggest surprise, for me, was how much I learned about Griffin's brother, Alex. For those unfamiliar, Alex is a very low-profile figure in the Dunne family, who made the decision early to shun the life of showbiz for all of eternity. The most I knew about him was his childhood crush on Carrie Fisher (recounted in more detail here), and his 1995 disappearance on a hiking trail where he, thankfully, turned up fine three days later. I had no reason to think I would learn anything more about him. But to my surprise, I learned that Alex Dunne, both sensitive and brilliant to astonishing degrees, suffered from serious mental health issues, which garner their own chapters in the book. To be frank, I'm surprised Alex gave Griffin his blessing to write about it, given his private nature. It also makes his disappearance much more terrifying in context. Other stories that were new to me included Griffin's ill-fated first marriage, his time on the set of JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY, and his journey to the Cannes Film Festival to promote Martin Scorsese's underrated AFTER HOURS. The full title is THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB: A FAMILY MEMOIR, and his focus on family is consistent throughout. The book ends in 1990, with the birth of his daughter, Hannah, with his second wife Carey Lowell. As a result, we don't get into his directing career, which includes PRACTICAL MAGIC, FIERCE PEOPLE, and the documentary on his aunt Joan Didion. I'm crossing my fingers that another book is in the near future. In conclusion, if *I* learned a lot from THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB, so will the average reader. I can't recommend it enough.

What a captivating memoire! Honest, brave, well-written, touching and completely entertaining. Couldn’t put it down. Also recommend Griffin Dunne’s documentary of his aunt, Joan Didion, now on Netflix. It provided an added dimension to this family’s journey. Bravo times two, Mr. Dunne.

This is a great book. I enjoyed it very much. This family has been through a lot… Your awesome Griffin, you’re a great actor…

Engaging, honest memoir with some sad, some hilarious stories and events. Great historical info and many entertaining and cuckoo moments. At its heart it is a look into a different world but one which in essentially relatable . Loved it

The Dunnes are storytellers and Griffin’s stories of Hollywood beginnings and New York adulting are a great read. It’s a bumpy ride, made gothic by family tragedy, and inspirational by their efforts to keep afloat in the face of the insanity of the Los Angeles justice system.

Giffin Dunne’s The Friday Afternoon Club: a Family Memoir is a memoir unlike any I’ve ever read. When I read the blurb for the book, I thought, “Now that sounds like fun.” It is much more than that. True, Dunne, from an early age, at his own confession, was a liar. In his growing up years, he apparently spun many tales, and those lies got more elaborate each time he told them. So, it is easy to believe that stories from those years are embellished. But who cares? Those stories are “laugh until you choke” funny. One had me in stitches so much that my husband came into the room, inquired what I was laughing about, and in my re-telling, I almost choked again! The memoir, though, turns deadly serious eventually, recounting the murder of his younger sister, and the trial that ensued. That murder is well-known by anyone who lived during that time, and its aftermath was far-reaching. There was a global outcry at the injustice of the verdict for her boyfriend/murderer. Dunne’s tale is one of grief, outrage, revenge, family disloyalties, family reuniting, and a life, for him, that led to success as an actor and producer. Griffin Dunne may not be a household name as his famous aunt and uncle, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, and his father Dominick Dunne came to be because of their writing careers, but Giffin shows all their talents in this marvelous re-telling of his sometimes funny, later tragic, and finally triumphant life. This is a memoir that needs to be read—one that teaches us how families can behave and how families can heal.

I want to read it again already

Great rave, rainy day read

I thoroughly enjoyed this funny, sad, honest and well-written memoir. It's all been said in other reviews, but if you grew up watching films like An American Werewolf in London, Star Wars and Poltergeist, it might give you more of a vested interest, although certainly not a prerequisite for this compelling read.

Funny, sad at times, but every bit well written…Griffin is a great story Teller. Ever since “on writing” I had not found such na entertaining and well written book. Til today, that is. Now Back to reading it - top Three books of 2024, easily.

In questo estratto dalle sue memorie, The Friday Afternoon Club, racconta la storia della famiglia Dunne , la sua famiglia,e di come la morte della sorella Dominique ha devastato la vita familiare nel 1982. Buon libro,non c’è ancora la traduzione in italiano ma vi assicuro che è molto coinvolgente.