The Friday Afternoon Club

Service95 Recommends is the home of the books we love and reviews from our contributors. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne explores his life as the nephew of John Dunne and Joan Didion – one constantly and hilariously entangled with celebrities. 

What We Say: “Griffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan finds wicked humour and glimmers of light in even the most painful of circumstances. Aged eight, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At 13, 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 16, he got kicked out of boarding school. In the midst of it all, Griffin’s 22-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. A family story that embraces the best and worst efforts of its loveable, infuriating, funny and moving characters – its author most of all” - Maria Padget

What They Say: “So honest and funny and smart... What a guy, I kept thinking, as I wolfed his book down” - Rachel Cooke

Available on Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble

For more book recommendations, subscribe to our newsletter   

Maria Padget is Service95 Book Club Director