The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

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 captures the essence of growing up amidst Hollywood and Manhattan’s larger-than-life characters, finding humor and light even in painful moments.

At eight, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At thirteen, he attended his aunt Joan Didion and uncle John Gregory Dunne’s legendary LA party for Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, hoping to meet Janis Joplin. By sixteen, he was expelled from boarding school, ending his formal education. In his early twenties, he shared an apartment with Carrie Fisher in Manhattan’s Hotel Des Artistes, while she filmed Star Wars and he worked at Radio City Music Hall. A few years later, he starred in the iconic film After Hours, directed by Martin Scorsese. Amidst all this, his sister Dominique, a rising Hollywood star, was tragically murdered by her ex-boyfriend, leading to a high-profile trial and his father Dominick Dunne’s career shift to crime reporting and victims' rights activism.

The Friday Afternoon Club is more than a celebrity memoir; it’s a deeply personal family story, rich with the poignant absurdities, love, and frustrations of its endearing, complex characters—especially its author.