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The instant New York Times bestseller!
“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.
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Trevor Street –
If you are interested in the film industry and this kind of modern Hollywood family then you will enjoy this memoir. Dunne writes with flair and style. An enjoyable read.
Elizabeth gode –
This is the greatest memoir I have ever read!!!! Beautiful, heartbreaking, brilliant, witty, funny, intelligent!!!! Thank you Griffin for this gorgeous, masterful memoir. THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB IS TRULY TRULY A MASTERPIECE!!!! I lost my sister a few months ago and am not handling it well but your words definitely brought a calm to me. I can’t thank you enough. I am buying a copy of this beautiful work of art for every person in my life that I hold dear. Griffin, you are a beautiful, courageous soul and one of the greatest writers ever!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!
carilynp –
I’m surprised how much I related to this book. I expected it to be a vicarious breath of rare air. A tragedy meets privilege memoir. It’s so much more. Behind the celebrity & family tragedy is real love, hard earned, lost at too high a price, with anger to be processed, healing hard won with a wry sense of humor. Often when actors take up the pen, the writing is performative. Not Dunne. His writing is understated and insightful. Never overdone. It’s easy to dismiss his literary talent as a genetic lottery but that would be short sighted. I suspect he has earned it and made it all his own. Highly recommended.
Tony C (London) –
For those of us having grown up with the author’s father and his show about crimes, this is an incredible account of how a family can be successful yet so dysfunctional – made me feel positively normal!
vee rae –
I could not put the book down. If you like Hollywood and Interesting stories about some Hollywood stars. Not to mention the very sad story of the family membrr death.
DGleksman –
I was a huge fan of Dominick Dunne, and he was one of the reasons I kept my subscription to Vanity Fair. This book is a peak behind the curtain, and being a year older than Griffin, I was familiar with all of the ‘celebrities’ who made an appearance in this truly funny, heartfelt family sage. A great read.
Jan –
I laughed,cried and occasionally gasped in astonishment. The last page gutted me with joy and sadness as it also meant it was finished. An absolutely beautifully written and heartfelt memoir.
G. Triggs –
I’ve been a fan of Dominick Dunne’s for years……also of Joan Didion. This family history was interesting to read — well written — often funny. Still the death of Griffin’s sister, Dominique, clearly impacted the family for many years and for those still left — even now. Griffin is brave to share many of the family’s stories.
Bstew –
Beautifully written, very funny at times, and very grim at other times. It may be that I enjoyed it because I was familiar with the cast of characters – I’ve read books by Joan Didion (his Aunt), I’ve seen some of his films (he produced and starred in After Hours). Whatever the case, I loved the book and it was a quick read.
Perhaps check if a Hollywood memoir would appeal to you (although not all of it takes place in LA and it’s not your typical Hollywood memoir). Highly recommended!
JordanBlossey –
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.
JordanBlossey –
This is no mere celebrity memoir. Sure, the author is famous, yes, his parents were as well, and he’s the nephew of the late literary ‘it’ girl. All of those things are wonderful, indeed, but what makes this book so special is it’s told by a true raconteur (I knew he could act but clearly, he inherited the writing gene), recounting intimate anecdotes, some tragic, never losing his sense of humor, gratitude, and love for family and friends.
Griffin’s family history is fascinating. Made up of his once LA power couple parents Dominick and Lenny, literary luminaries aunt Joan Didion and uncle John Dunne, and his maternal and fraternal grandparents had their own tales to wow. In case you haven’t read any of his father, aunt, or uncle’s books or Vanity Fair articles, suffice it to say, he’s endured more than his share of interesting and heartbreaking events. Griffin grew up in Beverly Hills at a time when parties were parties (the Dunnes hosted many with guests such as Sean Connery, Natalie Wood), his mother was glamorous, well-loved, his brother battled mental illness, his sister Dominique, a budding actress, strangled to death by her boyfriend. Their lives forever changed. Dominick hit hard times before he made a comeback covering true crime of the wealthy set (beginning with the trial of the man who murdered his daughter) and became Tina Brown’s darling (a regular in court during the O.J. trial). Like many families, there is pain and dysfunction. Growing up together, his friendship with Carrie Fisher seemed genuine and fun loving. Their inside jokes, both on the cusp of stardom, you can practically hear their laughter and imagine the mischief they got into.
From west coast to east coast, through ups and downs, childhood antics to faithfully attending the murder trial while shooting a film in the evenings to going on to producing and directing, this is a succinctly captured time capsule told by a kind, witty soul, as he shares his beloved family with us.