Harp (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: John Gregory Dunne
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Work: Memoir
- Time of Work: The 1930’s to the 1980’s
- Setting: Hartford, Connecticut; Los Angeles; New York City; Ireland; West Germany; El Salvador; Jordan; and Southeast Asia
- Principal Characters: John Gregory Dunne, Joan Didion, Dorothy Burns Dunne (do), Dr. Richard Dunne, Dominick Francis Burns (poppa), Harriet Burns, Harriet Dunne (hat), Stephen Dunne, Dominick Dunne, Dominique Dunne
- Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir
- Subjects: Middle classes, Asia or Asians, Novelists, Immigration or emigration, Cancer, Death or dying, Catholics or Catholic Church, Filmmaking or filmmakers, Ireland or Irish people, Heart attack or disease
- Locales: New York, NY, Los Angeles, CA, Ireland, El Salvador, Jordan, West Germany, Hartford, CT, Southeast Asia
In such novels as True Confessions (1977) and Dutch Shea, Jr. (1982), John Gregory Dunne has explored the lives of Irish-American priests, policemen, politicians, and lawyers. In Harp, he takes a more personal look at the Irish-American experience. Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season (1974), Dunne’s previous memoir, used his fears of death and a nervous breakdown as a starting point for a somewhat fictionalized examination of both his own neuroses and those of his times. In Harp, heart problems trigger what he says is his first in-depth consideration of...
[The entire page is 2350 words long]
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