J a n c e e D u n n

"I'm Concerned"

I am writing an essay about the Bravo show Project Runway for an upcoming anthology. Normally I don't watch much reality T.V. but oh, do I love my Project Runway.

My grandmother Lillian used to watch wrestling on the sly and was secretly, deeply devoted to it. Well, that's the way I feel about "my program." The heart of the show is Tim Gunn, guiding force and chief creative officer at Liz Claibourne. I love his way of looking at the contestants' designs, hand on chin, slight frown, and then his inevitable pronouncement: "I'm concerned." How I wish I could befriend him and attend elegant little dinner parties at his apartment. Fun fact: Did you know he was a championship swimmer in high school?

My husband used to roll his eyes when the show came on, but then he started hovering on the arm of the couch, before finally taking a seat next to me and offering comments like 'how does Daniel continue to squeak by?'

Clippings From Mom

Does anyone else out there receive random newspaper clippings in the mail from their retired parents? I just got a bulletin from my mother entitled "Beating Back Nature's Furry Intruders." It is about the Nutria, a "giant, rat-like swamp creature" from South America which has apparently invaded the Louisiana wetlands.

My mother wrote "Who knew?" on top of the article.

Now I can't stop thinking about, as the article put it, "the dreaded Nutria invasion."

Lately reading

I've been on a Dickens jag lately, reading everything of his that I can get my hands on, which was triggered by my recent trip to London. My husband was doing UK press for his book and I tagged along, and while he was doing interviews, I wandered through the city by myself. It was heaven. I plunged into all of my old-lady favorite activities: museums, parks, tea, chocolate shops, and so forth. I went to Keats' house but it was being remodeled (???) and also to Dickens' house, where he would often entertain guests and write at the same time, standing at a podium.

I showed up the moment it opened so for a while I was the only one there, which I loved. Then an employee of the house approached me and said, 'Young lady, would you like to wind Dickens' clock with his very own clock winder?" Normally just being called 'young lady' would have been exciting enough, but then he hands me a well-worn little wooden object, and I carefully wound Dickens' grandfather clock, just as the great man used to do. Need I say that I got goose bumps?

Long interview on Bookslut.com

Clearly I like to talk. That poor writer.

Here's the link

Newark Star-Ledger review

Newark Star-Ledger
Summer reading
Sunday, August 03, 2008

Chatham-raised Jancee Dunn's "Don't You Forget About Me" (Random House, 288 pp., $24) is an eminently readable debut novel from the former Rolling Stone staff writer and acclaimed memoirist ("But Enough About Me"). Divorced and desperate to regroup, thirtysomething New York City TV producer Lillian Curtis reclaims her childhood room in her parents' New Jersey home. With loads of free time and her 20-year high school reunion looming, Lillian goes into a nostalgic haze over her high school days before facing cold reality. Dunn (who has also written for Vanity Fair, the New York Times and GQ) doesn't take easy suburban pot shots or cash in on '80s nostalgia, but offers a funny, tender profile of a confused woman who must go back to move forward. Those looking for a summer read with substance -- especially women whose teenage days coincided with Ronald Reagan and Wham! -- should look no further.

-- Pete Croatto

People magazine review!

August 11, 2008

Don’t You Forget About Me (three stars)

Thirty-eight-year-old Lily is a New York City TV producer who finds herself moving back in with her parents in New Jersey after her husband of 15 years abruptly asks for a divorce. Back in her childhood home just in time for her 20th high school reunion, she starts feeling nostalgic for her carefree youth – particularly her brooding (and still devastatingly handsome) ex-boyfriend Christian. As the pair rekindle their romance, and Lily gleefully reverts to some of her teenage, slightly Mean Girls ways, she learns how much of the past still affects her present. Steeped in ‘80s-era references (Rick Springfield cassettes, Duran Duran posters, and Anais Anais perfume, anyone?), the flashback elements of Lily’s tale are breezy, reliably tacky fun. But unexpected moments of tenderness involving her parents, friends, and firecracker octogenarian boss Vi (“I know people hook up these days,” she tells Lily. “I’m not a fossil.”) give the story heart.

Thank you, Newsweek!

August 4, 2008

Page Turning Edition
Satisfying summer reading doesn't always come from the top of the best-seller lists. Some new titles and some you might have missed.

"Don't You Forget About Me"

Jancee Dunn's intelligent chick lit about a divorcee who moves back in with her parents.

Gayle King show

My appearance on Gayle King's radio show on XM's Oprah & Friends (channel 156!) has been moved to Monday August 4 - 8 am, 2 pm, and 8 pm.

Can't wait!

Cassette From My Ex

I have a story today on the great website "Cassette From My Ex," which is hours of fun if you have not seen it.

Here's the link

My new novel is out today

"Don't You Forget About Me" lands today!

A less-than-subtle link to Amazon

Gayle King

I'm on Gayle King's radio show tomorrow, Wednesday the 30th!

It's on Oprah & Friends, channel 156 on XM Satellite. It runs at 8 a.m., 2 p.m., and 8 p.m.

Gayle King really can talk to anybody. Let me tell you, I was never so comfortable in my life - I think they had to push me out of there afterwards. She is so engaging and smart, and just a lot of fun.

I'll put a podcast up afterwards.

'Gentle Thoughts For Today'

What is it about retiree dads that compels them to forward you nine million e mails from their retiree cronies, accompanied by a note saying YOU'LL GET A KICK OUT OF THIS?

I just received something called Gentle Thoughts For Today from my father. Like every other e mail that he forwards me, it's a compendium of wry thoughts on getting older, the differences between men and women, and carping against the government.

A sampling:

Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for 40 are XL.

The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble.

A penny saved is a government oversight.

Did you ever notice: when you put the word "The" and "IRS" together, it spells "theirs."

Good stuff. Good stuff.

New Essay in August/September Modern Bride

WEDDING BY COMMITTEE

One bride wonders: What's so wrong with asking family for their thoughts on the planning decisions?
By Jancee Dunn

Recently my sister Heather decided to paint her fireplace white. This is minor news in most families, but not ours. All day, the phone calls flew back and forth. My mother suggested cream instead. My father phoned from the golf course to warn that painting the fireplace would decrease the property value. I debated the pitfalls of the ‘wrong’ shade of white. My sister Dinah requested a photo of the fireplace before weighing in.
My family does everything by committee, so that the most trivial dilemma is debated with the zeal of Talmudic scholars. So a few years ago, when my boyfriend Tom and I announced our engagement at a family dinner, everyone began chattering at once.
The proceedings started out deceptively easy when we reached a speedy consensus on the wedding’s location: Sanibel Island, Florida, a sentimental vacation spot for both of our families and site of Tom’s recent proposal. Then it all slid downhill when we moved on to the menu. Not only are there three chefs among us, but like most families, we’re obsessed with food. When I proposed the idea of coconut shrimp for appetizers, my hair blew back from the force of the commentary. Your father doesn’t like seafood. It’s Florida so we’re having coconut shrimp, end of story! Forget the shrimp, fried food will kill your appetite. No, it absorbs alcohol. What about an oyster plate? Absolutely not, one bad oyster and you’ll remember this day for another reason.
Three hours later, they had endorsed exactly one menu item – steak –and an impassioned debate had broken out around the wedding cake. To keep everyone happy, Tom and I eventually agreed that each tier would be a different flavor: chocolate, vanilla and raspberry, and lemon coconut. (Carrot cake was vetoed as “too healthy.”) “And don’t cut the cake and smash it into each other’s faces,” said my mother. “It’s disgusting, it’s not a loving thing to do. Feed each other gently.” Yes, Mom.
“It’s just a cake,” Tom said later as we drove home. “Why does everything have to be a landmark Supreme Court decision? I don’t know how you people get anything done. If this was a corporation, it would be run into the ground.”
I sighed. “Get used to it,” I said.
And so the months before our wedding were marked by reams of e mails. Flowers? “Do all white because it’s timeless,” Heather wrote. “Colors go in and out of style.”
Fine. How about lily of the valley? I suggested in a group – always a group - e mail.
TOO EXPENSIVE, my father typed back in the capital letters favored by retiree dads. Two dozen e mails later, the verdict came in: white roses.
The ‘long dress or short’ discussion grew particularly animated. At first, they ruled that I should wear a cocktail dress, because at 35, I was “no spring chicken.” Then, in a last minute nod to tradition, it was voted that I should wear my mother’s dress, an unconventional but lovely column of lace.
Should I wear my hair up? Elegant! said my mother. Aging, asserted my sisters. Down is more modern. Exhausted, I compromised with a style of half up, half down. Take back your wedding, urged my friends. It’s about the two of you, not the fourteen of you.
It was too late. As the wedding day approached, Tom and I were down to one decision: the intimate messages we would inscribe to each other on the inside of our wedding rings. When we couldn’t agree, Tom teasingly suggested I call my family for advice.
“I already did,” I admitted. “They think we should just keep it simple and just do dates and initials.”
And so a few weeks later, I found myself walking down a sand ‘aisle’ on the beach at Sanibel. When I saw my family’s beaming faces, tears blurred my eyes, because I realized that they were having just as much fun as I was. They weighed in on my wedding not to aggravate me but because they shared completely in my happiness. Yes, the ceremony was technically about the joining of two souls, not fourteen, but Tom and I had a lifetime to be a duo. I didn’t want to take back my wedding. My family’s meddling drove me nuts, but in an increasingly disconnected world, I was actually glad that I had a group of people who cared enough to make twenty phone calls about veil placement.
Of course, everyone has limits. When the wedding was finally over, Tom and I were packing for our honeymoon, a long road trip down South.
I held up my cell phone. “Maybe I’ll take this, just in case of an emergency,” I said casually.
Tom took it gently out of my hands. “No,” he said.

I confess that this wonderful review in today's 'Los Angeles Times' had me a little teary. Sniff!

BOOK REVIEW
'Don't You Forget About Me' by Jancee Dunn
A debut novel about a high school reunion deftly avoids clichés.
By Elisabeth Vincentelli, Special to The Times
July 22, 2008

Considering that she spent more than a decade interviewing celebrities for Rolling Stone -- an experience she recounted in her 2006 memoir "But Enough About Me" -- it would have been easy for Jancee Dunn to use the trappings of fame as background for her debut novel, or to write a roman à clef about debauched rockers. Happily, she shunned that crowded playing field; she did, however, pick an even more banal one, that of the high school reunion tale. Even worse: the '80s-flavored reunion. And yet Dunn's deft sense of pacing and her old-fashioned niceness make "Don't You Forget About Me" a breezy, entertaining summer read that never insults the reader's intelligence. This is a seemingly modest achievement that should not be underestimated.

The book's most compelling aspect is that its humor, largely observational, is always affectionate. "Don't You Forget About Me" doesn't try to compensate for the familiarity of its chosen subgenre with arch hipness, and it eschews the veneer of weary cynicism that coats so many books like green fuzz on a month-old piece of cheese. Dunn laughed at herself in her memoir; in the novel it's her heroine and possible stand-in, the gently hapless Lillian Curtis, who bears the brunt of the jokes while never turning into a pathetic doormat.

At 38, Lillian is a happy Manhattanite, shuttling between her "human golden retriever" of a husband, Adam, and her job as producer on the talk show "Tell Me Everything! With Vi Barbour," a haven for semi-washed-up celebrities. After Adam abruptly dumps her, Lillian decides to regroup at her childhood home in New Jersey. She even stays in her old bedroom, perfectly preserved by her parents as if it were the 1980s wing of the Smithsonian. Because she has, let's face it, nothing better to do, Lillian decides to attend her 20-year high school reunion. She'll reconnect with the old gang from the Bethel Memorial High class of 1988 and who knows, her then-boyfriend, the charismatic, unpredictable Christian, might even show up.

Like the quaint show she works on, Lillian is slightly eccentric and rather happy being out of touch with the zeitgeist. Her idea of a fun weekend is eating tuna casserole and watching "Singin' in the Rain" at the Connecticut house of her 74-year-old boss and friend Vi. "I just had no interest in contemporary pop culture," Lillian muses without any discernible regret. This sets up a clever way to defuse the book's blah premise, since Dunn suggests that immersing her protagonist in a warm bath of '80s nostalgia actually is a step forward for Lillian.

Indeed, despite the occasional gimmicky contrivance, as when Lillian calls a J. Crew phone operator for romance counseling, Dunn deftly pilots her story through the narrative shoals that lurk in memory-lane lit: references to the dorky songs one used to love and the dorky clothes one used to wear; pithy descriptions of now-balding, now-fat classmates; reminiscences of cringe-inducing love notes and drunken shenanigans. Dunn has such a light touch -- she seems to have a sixth sense for when the cup of fun clichés is about to run over and she needs to stop pouring -- that her often-hapless lead hasn't exhausted our goodwill by the time she learns her inevitable lesson.

Along the way, Lillian gets advice from her psych-professor sister, Ginny, and the spirited Vi, one acting as Lillian's auxiliary brain, the other as her heart. "For me, high school was a crude caste system made up of fleeting social ties among hormonally excited teens," the resolutely unsentimental Ginny lectures at one point. "And why those ties would create anything meaningful twenty years later is beyond me." It takes dozens of pages for this message to sink in -- a novel does need to unfold after all -- yet even then, Dunn mercifully refrains from oversoftening Lillian, who finds herself again blithely betraying a frumpy friend she had traded for more glamorous pals two decades ago.

While many Americans' fixation on their high school years would provide ample fodder for a writer with an ambitious agenda and an acid streak, Dunn isn't a satirist -- her descriptions of human foibles are just too good-natured. And one hopes that after "But Enough About Me" and "Don't You Forget About Me," she will turn her keen eye and nimble pen away from that first-person pronoun and tackle the wider world.

Elisabeth Vincentelli is arts and entertainment editor at Time Out New York.

Don't You Forget About Me
A Novel

Jancee Dunn

Villard: 282 pp., $24

Oprah & Friends

I'm so excited to be Gayle King's guest on her radio show, which is on XM's Oprah & Friends (channel 156.)

We'll be talking about the ethics column that I preside over in "O, The Oprah Magazine" called "Now What Do I Do?

Normally I'd be sick with nerves, but everybody - and I mean everybody - at the magazine talks about how wonderfully nice she is. And how can you not love a person who rhapsodizes on her show about the offerings in the Hearst cafeteria? (Hearst publishes O magazine.)

I will have the air date shortly.