Harp

Novelist Dunne begins bookends this memoir with the loss of family members. First there is unexpected deaths of a brother and building to the tragic killing of his niece Dominique Dunne. In the middle is a discursive wandering through his techniques for inspiration from travel to peering in other people's medicine cabinets. This has an odd injection of a fantastical Internal Affairs Investigation as a way apparently to allow him to examine his own conscience once removed. While a heart operation looms he navigates us to more expected deaths of elderly relatives as he scours Ireland for roots. ("Harp" is a semi-derogatory term for Irish Catholics while Dunne professes interest in being neither.) Overall, this is interesting and is so show more lacking in cohesion it can both be read with entertainment at any part, or dismissed entirely. show less

I give this book an "OK". I've read much better examples of books purporting to describe "what it means to be Irish in America". Anything written by Frank McCourt, for a start. Pete Hamill's marvelous stuff, for another.
I did learn the definition of "harp" - referring to Irish Catholics of a different social class from the Kennedys, and as a group segregated from both "Yanks" and "WASPS", which were as distinct from each other as from the harps. Didn't need to read the whole book for that...
I'm pretty sure I read Dunne's Dutch Shea, Jr. years ago---don't remember much about it. Nothing about this autobiography makes me want to go back to it, or any of his fiction. My curiosity is satisfied.
Review written in March 2007