I picked this memoir up not because I knew anything about Griffin Dunne, but because I was obsessed with his father, Dominick Dunne’s books as well as fascinated by the shocking murder of his sister, Dominique who rose to fame in the movie Poltergeist. The title itself is an homage to her as she had such a club of friends who met every Friday afternoon for drinks and talk.
But what I discovered is that The Friday Afternoon Club is so much more than a memoir. It starts with Dunne’s parents Dominick and Lenny (Ellen) and takes the reader not only their journey through being rich to Dominick’s fall from grace to Lenny’s battle with MS to the lead up to the death of Dominique as well as the heartbreaking trial which left the family angry and stunned.
But the most amazing part of this book is the stories…every page is filled with incredible tales which include many, many 1960’s and 1970’s movie stars. Also included are stories about the family, his brother Alex’s breakdowns, his father’s drinking and his wife divorcing him. His sisters short-lived life and how everybody loved her wit and charm, but nobody knew what was happening to her at the end of her life.
Griffin Dunne’s life journey is filled with so many stories, such as how Sean Connery saved his life from drowning in their pool, to story after story about his best friend Carrie Fischer who he loved, adored and spoke to the day she got on the plane in which she died.
He tells stories of his Uncle John an acclaimed writer and his father becoming estranged until one day when they met at their cardiologist’s office neither knowing they went there. John, who was married to the profound writer, Joan Didion would play an important part in Dunne’s upbringing, and Didion and his uncle would be in his life until their deaths, with Dunne actually doing a documentary on Didion.
The book goes into the dark place of death with Dominique’s murder and actually opens with the scene of a police officer coming to Lenny’s house to tell her of her daughter’s injuries and being transported to the hospital. In great detail, Dunne goes into what they believe happened to her and the abuse at the hands of her boyfriend. As Dunne points out when you wanted to tell someone a secret, Dominique was the one to go to, but in the end, she died with no one knowing what she had been going through.
As for the trial, the boyfriend was made to look like a saint, and the outcome shockingly horrifying for the family. And this was actually the impetus which broke Dominick and John’s relationship.
With all this said, there are many, many funny stories as well as interesting tidbits of Griffin’s life and trying to succeed as an actor and producer and his innocence and how his life was changed in so many ways by being the son/nephew/brother of a prominent, but dysfunctional family.
The Friday Afternoon Club is a fascinating read, one of the best memoirs I believe I have ever read. You can actually feel the pain, the sorrow, the joy and the crazy in his magnificent writing.
Published by Penguin Press
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