Out of the woods, into the fire
Peter Heller’s Burn pits two hunting buddies against a civilization ravaged by violence
Peter Heller’s Burn pits two hunting buddies against a civilization ravaged by violence
Understanding our lunar sister better
Jeffery Payne has been a bookseller for over 40 years. Currently living and working in downtown Colorado Springs, he is incredibly grateful that he gets to do what he loves to do. When not shelving books he can be found tending his garden and working out ways to sneak more books into the house.
Film actor and author Griffin Dunne’s Colorado connection, briefly noted in his charming, disarming and satisfying family memoir, is that he honed his acting skills as a teenager at the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs where he “knocked it out of the park” as Jerry in Edward Albee’s Zoo Story and was changed by the experience. Dunne was forced to leave the next semester after getting caught smoking hashish in the dorm the night before he was due to perform in Othello. This brief misadventure mirrors many others in young Dunne’s developing years as he relocates from coast to coast, rubs elbows with his parents’ Hollywood coterie, is best friends with Carrie Fisher and constantly adores his eclectic and glamorous parents, brother Alex and sister Dominique. Dominique’s 1982 murder at the hands of an abusive ex-boyfriend and the subsequent, highly publicized trial of her killer become the focus of much of the book’s second half. Dunne’s book rises well above the category of celebrity memoir to a true family memoir, unwaveringly honest and filled with moments of despair as well as laughter as the Dunnes pull together and fall apart, like most families, in the face of tragedy.