About this Event
Join us for an in-person event with actor and director, Griffin Dunne, for the release of his new memoir The Friday Afternoon Club. Joining Griffin in conversation is critically acclaimed author Alexandra Styron. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.
Can’t make the event?
STRAND IN-PERSON EVENT COVID-19 POLICY:
Masks and vaccination checks are not required for entry.
Attendees are welcome to wear a mask if they choose. If you do not have a mask and would like one, The Strand will provide masks at the door.
Please note this is subject to change any time before or during the event per the author’s request.
ACCESSIBILITY:
Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.
ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by May 29th to request.
Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.
For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]
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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.
Griffin Dunne has been an actor, producer, and director since the late 70s. Among his work, he produced and acted in After Hours; he directed Practical Magic and the documentary The Center Will Not Hold about his aunt, Joan Didion. Griffin and his dog, Mary, live in the East Village of Manhattan.
Photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe
Alexandra Styron is an author based in Brooklyn, New York. Her most recent book, Steal This Country: A Handbook for Resistance, Persistence, and Fixing Almost Everything is how-to for, and celebration of, youth and social justice. Alexandra is also the author of the bestselling memoir Reading My Father, finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, and All The Finest Girls, a novel. Her work has appeared in several anthologies as well as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and The Financial Times, among other publications.
Photo credit: Susan M Heilbron
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Strand Book Store, 828 Broadway, New York, United States
USD 30.00
