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The Friday Afternoon Club

A Family Memoir

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The Friday Afternoon Club

Written by: Griffin Dunne
Narrated by: Griffin Dunne
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About this listen

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.

©2024 Griffin Dunne (P)2024 Penguin Audio
Art & Literature Entertainment & Celebrities Funny Witty New York Celebrity

What the critics say

“Rueful and diverting . . . Irish touchstones, such as wit, guilt and silence, are all here, spangled with late-20th-century Hollywood stardust . . . Heartbreaking and wry.”—Wall Street Journal

“Warm and perceptive . . . This book [has] many well-wrapped little gifts . . . [and] pockets of real depth."The New York Times

“What makes these unimaginable events so readable, and allows Dunne to find a kind of grace even amid tragedy, are his unshakable black humor and unfailing nose for a good story . . . One might also detect the influence of Aunt Joan . . . Dunne, too, is a prospector for the incandescent detail.”Los Angeles Times

What listeners say about The Friday Afternoon Club

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Absolutely wonderful

This was spectacular, felt like I was part of the family. I listened to the complete book the first time in awh, looked up the family and listened again. I thank you for such a gift to let us in, to understand and admire such a strong and tenacious family. I loved this.

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Witty and well written.

Like gossiping with a well connected friend, but with a little pathos and self reflection as well. Griffen Dunne has led a very colourful life. I laughed out loud at many points. The tragic murder of his sister and the resulting trial adds gravity and depth to the story. A memorable read.

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Quite Simply Simple Beauty

This was quite simply the most honest, raw and devastating honest memoir I have heard/read. The forthright manner that Griffin Dunne chose as his launchpad is unflinchingly real. And in being so, is unflinchingly poignant.

His adept and moving vocal telling is quite simply mesmerising. For who best to vocalise his devastatingly tragic and yet undeniably privileged life is he?

I will listen to this again - I believe this open belly, equistivally thoughtful heart wrenchingly brave memoir is beyond expectation- it is beyond - BEAUTIFUL

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