In refusal of gun violence, a work of art
How a shooting in her neighborhood spurred a writer to action and gave birth to a collaborative artist book
How a shooting in her neighborhood spurred a writer to action and gave birth to a collaborative artist book
Mary Margaret Alvarado is the author of American Weather (NewLights Press), a book-length essay on gun violence and disarmament in collaboration with the artist Corie Cole; Chrome of Iris, winner of the 2023 Burnside Review chapbook contest; and Hey Folly (Dos Madres), a book of poems. A teacher, muralist and mother, Mia’s work has been published in The Rumpus, The Point, VQR, Outside, Cagibi, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, The Boston Review, The Kenyon Review and elsewhere, and thrice shortlisted in The Best American series. www.marymargaretalvarado.com
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.