The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

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.

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.

Having read and loved some of his father’s books I was interested in reading a book by Griffin Dunne. I knew I would like reading about the family but was very pleased to see that Griffin is a great story teller. He is very descriptive whether being serious or outright funny! I thoroughly enjoyed the book and hope he writes another!

I first heard about this book on a social media website I follow. The person that recommended it commented how wonderful it was. I had heard about the author's sister's tragic death and figured the majority of the book would be about that. As a lover of true crime books I had to give it a shot. I was surprised to find that the book had so much more behind it. Not only did it cover his sister's short life but his family history which I didn't know much about. The book brings you back to the Golden Hollywood era and I found myself smiling over many of the stories. If I could give this book more than five stars I would.

Thought he would be a better writer. Prose lacking. Kind of juvenile.

Very interesting to learn what it was like to grow up a Hollywood insider. The good and the outright bad.

Great read, especially if you were/are fan of Dominick Dunne. Well written, unflinching account of an elegant family who suffered tragedy with as much grace as humanly possible. I cried a little and laughed at loud in parts. Addresses the complexities of what it means to be a family. Highly recommend.