The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.

Martha Graham

Dad compared himself and Lenny with Gerald and Sara Murphy, socialites who entertained the great artists of the Lost Generation on the French Riviera, and on whom Fitzgerald based Nicole and Dick Diver in Tender Is the Night.

Bob Denver, who played Gilligan, was an early idol, my fandom only tarnished when I saw him have a meltdown over a last-minute rewrite and upend a watercooler onto the floor of the soundstage.

a shot on you, kid.” Of all my “this

friend’s uncle had just been elected

only for students who’d been invited back. My poor attendance to classes I considered unworthy of my time or delusional talent meant there would be no second year for me. I was humiliated and angry at

stuffy with the stink of stale smoke and my

mean now? Wait a minute, maybe we should—”