A poignant love letter and evidence that through it all, genuine love is the backbone that keeps a family strong.
A moving memoir from the actor and producer.
Conventional wisdom says we cannot choose family or fate. In this tribute to his famous family, Dunne (b. 1955) reminds readers to love family and do the best with what fate sends along. Bookended by the shocking murder of his sister, Dominique, and the birth of his daughter, Hannah, the narrative retraces the author’s history, offering colorful snippets of life in an intriguing, privileged milieu. In Dunne’s fascinating world, his father, writer and investigative journalist Dominick Dunne, swaps acrimonious barbs with literati brother and sister-in-law, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion (“Joan was a ‘serious writer,’ Dad explained to his children, ‘not like the hacks’ he’d hired to write at Four Star [Television]”). Carrie Fisher is a confidante—“best friends become best friends suddenly, and without knowing that’s what’s happening until it happens”—and celebrities drop in for parties and dinners. Despite the glamorous backdrops in California and New York, the author portrays a family whose core human experiences make them universally relatable. Dunne is candid about his father’s demons and substance abuse, which stoked the embers of a tumultuous marriage. He compassionately chronicles his mother’s battle with multiple sclerosis, and he gently examines the sibling dynamics between the three Dunne children (one of whom is mentally ill, and to whom he dedicates the book). Dunne also chronicles his own slow climb toward fame, an ascent he has navigated on his own terms. The tragedy of Dominique’s murder looms throughout, and the author capably describes stepping into two of the most challenging roles of his life to date: filming Johnny Dangerously while simultaneously supporting his family in their quest for justice for Dominique.
A poignant love letter and evidence that through it all, genuine love is the backbone that keeps a family strong.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9780593652824
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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