Review: Harp

Harp by John Gregory Dunne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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 lacking in cohesion it can both be read with entertainment at any part, or dismissed entirely.

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