Jancee Dunn, aging gracefully

Former MTV VJ Jancee Dunn chased a fairly serious novel (2008's DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME) with this collection of essays about getting old that can't help but keep bubbling up to the comic surface. Even when Dunn and her friend Lou are blankly contemplating their parents' eventual demise, they do so with the backdrop of a series of terrible Lifetime movies, as is their tradition, after snarking on the other shoppers at Whole Foods.

Dunn has more than made her peace with age; she tells her best friend explicitly in ...GETTING A TATTOO that she's prepared to embrace it, albeit in a gentle hipsterish way. Not for her the Red Hat Society; it's more about leaving boring dinner parties earlier and going on better vacations. And one thing she really does well in this collection is capture conversations like those -- I think there are three chapters of straight conversation. This device could be so tedious even for the most empty-eared eavesdropper, yet each one in the book feels authentic and revealing, not artificial or insidery. If two characters were having that dialogue in a fictional context, it would be entirely believable. (Was she taping? ...Hmm, unlikely.)

I found it interesting, in the department of publishing nerdery, that the paperback edition of this book is blurbed by Sloane Crosley, because Dunn is more of a prefigure to Crosley. Her first memoir, about her adventures in music journalism, came out in 2006; since then she's flown just below the radar, popping up now and then in magazines. What separates ...GETTING A TATTOO from Crosley's books is the unity of theme displayed here; having used her linear anecdotal material, here she hovers around a theme.

Origin note: I spotted this book in the Biography/Memoir section of my branch library while I was looking for something else. I knew Dunn had come out with a second memoir, and had enjoyed the first one BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME when I snagged a copy for free while visiting Dunn's publisher in 2006.

ToTT Tuesday: Announcing August's Talk of the Town Pick

My next appearance on "Talk of the Town" will be August 27, and this month I went ahead and picked a book that's already out in paperback in case you want to read along with me. My interest in personal finance has picked up in the last few years, not only as I've been adjusting to the "real world" but also as financial news have been dourly predicting a slump in the American economy. (For a great explanation of that, I recommend a "This American Life" episode called "The Giant Pool of Money.")

So the book I chose is Farnoosh Torabi's YOU'RE SO MONEY: LIVE RICH, EVEN WHEN YOU'RE NOT. Ms. Torabi is a financial reporter for TheStreet.com and hopefully will give us all some pointers. If you, already the savvy saver, don't wish to buy the book first, feel free to wait until the 27th and I'll tell you whether it's worth the splurge. And I'll be posting a little here and there about the book on Tuesdays until then.

Also, the subject of July's show, Jancee Dunn's DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME, hits bookstores today. I gave it three bookmarks, and I meant it!

Talk of the Town Tonight: Jancee Dunn

It's that time again... Find out if this book, Jancee Dunn's DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME, is worth reading on

Talk of the Town with Parker Sunshine
I'll be on ~7:30PM EDT (4:30 PDT, 1:30 Anna Time)
WEBR for D.C./Virginia/ Maryland locals (available through your TV)
Everyone else: Tune in here!

(Earlier: Jancee Dunn, The Pop-Culture Connection)

UPDATE: Time corrected to 7:30PM EDT.

Talk of the Town Tuesday: Jancee Dunn, The Pop-Culture Connection

My second appearance on "Talk of the Town with Parker Sunshine" is Wednesday, July 16. This week, in case you're curious, a little bit more about why I chose this book.

Jancee Dunn's first novel DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME has been on my radar for a while, before it even got its current title. After the success of her memoir BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME, about her journey from starstruck fan to MTV2 VJ (between 1996 and 2001), she got a two-book deal, with her first novel then named IN BETWEEN DAYS after a Cure song. The new title also comes from an '80s song from the band Simple Minds, best known as the song at the end of Brat Pack classic "The Breakfast Club." Here's a clip (with spoilers, naturally):



Now there's a song that can get stuck in your head. The callback to the '80s is intentional, not only because Dunn is a child of the '80s but her protagonist, Lillian Curtis, is returning to her New Jersey hometown after the breakup of her marriage -- just in time for her 20-year high school reunion.

Dunn isn't a VJ any more, but she still contributes to Rolling Stone where she started her career long ago, so I'm expecting to see a lot of musical references in this novel. But she's also branched out to many other media, including a recent New York Times story about real-estate buyer's remorse.

All this said, I wouldn't be reviewing this book if someone at Current Employer hadn't left a copy on the free table and if I hadn't gotten a free copy of her first book from the good folks at HarperCollins when I took a tour there. But even if I hadn't, I would seek out this book to see how a life lived among stars translates to fiction.

A little light reading on Jancee Dunn
Jancee's blog, which includes the favorable Publishers Weekly review for DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME
A blooper reel from her days at MTV2 [YouTube]
There aren't any examples of her regular VJing on YouTube, but here's a Charlie Rose appearance from 1999. [YouTube]
This blogger was one of Dunn's rare non-famous subjects for a "Rolling Stone" interview. [Tart Suite]