Dutch Shea, Jr.

by John Gregory Dunne

A man struggling desperately to escape the past is plunged into a future over which he has no control

Genres: Fiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

John Gregory Dunne was an American novelist, screenwriter and literary critic.

He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and was a younger brother of author Dominick Dunne. He suffered from a severe stutter and took up writing to express himself. Eventually he learned to speak normally by observing others. He graduated from Princeton University in 1954 and worked as a journalist for Time magazine. He married novelist Joan Didion on 30 January 1964, and they became collaborators on a series of screenplays, including Panic in Needle Park (1971), A Star Is Born (1976) and True Confessions (1981), an adaptation of his own novel. He is the author of two non-fiction books about Hollywood, The Studio and Monster.

As a literary critic and essayist, he was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. His essays were collected in two books, Quintana & Friends and Crooning.

He wrote several novels, among them True Confessions, based loosely on the Black Dahlia murder, and Dutch Shea, Jr.

He was the writer and narrator of the 1990 PBS documentary L.A. is It with John Gregory Dunne, in which he guided viewers through the cultural landscape of Los Angeles.

He died in Manhattan of a heart attack, in December 2003. His final novel, Nothing Lost, which was in galleys at the time of his death, was published in 2004.

He was father to Quintana Roo Dunne, who died in 2005 after a series of illnesses, and uncle to actors Griffin Dunne (who co-starred in An American Werewolf in London) and Dominique Dunne (who co-starred in Poltergeist).

His wife, Joan Didion, published The Year of Magical Thinking in October 2005 to great critical acclaim, a memoir of the year following his death, during which their daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, was seriously ill. It won the National Book Award.

Reviews

[faith adams-michaels · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe in Cat.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure how much I liked this. It made me laugh on occasion, but cringe a lot. I presume the almost never-ending racist comments by a lot of the male characters (who are mostly lawyers, judges or cops) is an indication of how Dunne viewed the legal profession at the time, although there is no comeback, and most of the black characters are defendants in court cases. All a bit uncomfortable really, or maybe I just didn't get it. It was a clever plot however, a seedy pimp lawyer taking centre-stage with a complex set of circumstances that are drawn together to provide a good ending.

[John DiConsiglio]

Dutch, we hardly knew ye. Somehow this sardonic 1982 pulp found its way into my then-adolescent hands & charmed me with its colorful menagerie of pimps, prostitutes & cops-on-the-take. (I shoulda been reading Little House on the Prairie, but the damage was Dunne.) Dutch is a fatalistic lawyer on the edge, juggling “raffish” clients while holding off lovers, the law & family secrets. Dunne was no hack. A celebrity journalist & screenwriter, he & wife Joan Didion were staples of Cavett & Carson. Dutch offered priceless lessons for a young writer: Get the details right & never be boring.

[Simon Wang · Rating 4 out of 5]

i picked this book up after reading the year of magical thinking by joan didion (dunne's widow)

i really liked the bleak hopelessness of the main character as well as the way he fixates on his past while refusing to examine it
i liked a lot of the stylistic choices regarding dialogue and the sort of rhythm of the text

a turn of phrase that really marked me is "chemotherapy for a metastasizing memory"

lots of bigotry throughout the book and entire sections that made my skin crawl

[David Olsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had very different expectations for this book. It was slow, and had a sort of pointless meandering plot. Also, lots of antiquated racist characters. Maybe these were more prevalent in the eighties.

[Tania Riveros · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanna see a film adaptation of this directed by David Fincher.

[Saxon · Rating 3 out of 5]

"'Hell, yes,' Marty Cagney said. 'So he's only thirteen, the kid, but what the hell, it's a good age to learn there's people who'll go through your pockets, you give them half a chance. It's a good day, you learn something like that. And, anyway, he's such a hotshot, he shouldn't leave his coat on the floor, and the pants. I pick them up, then I got the right to go through them. And what do I find in the pocket but a list. Very neat. One, two, three, four. The nuns teach him that at St. Gerald's. They know all the disco steps, the nuns these days, but they still teach neatness. One, get a haircut. That's the first thing on the list. Two, get bike fixed. So far, so good. Three, Granddad's birthday present. I figure the kid's not so bad, he's got it down on his list to get me a present. Four, jerk off. In his own handwriting. Let me ask you, Dutch, you think he thought he was going to forget? I was a kid, it wasn't the sort of thing slipped my mind. I didn't have to put it on a list either. The nuns those days, they saw your list, four, jerk off, they'd send you down to Father Kavanagh in the principal's office, and he'd look at number four on your list and he'd break your spleen. It's a new world, Dutch. You know what I did? I wrote five, go to confession, and stuck it back in his pocket, the list.'"

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um, wowie holy zowie. I am surprised by how much I enjoyed this. It was crazy intricate and bloody-rare and not at all what I usually enjoy. I'll have to read this several times over to pick up the little things I'm sure I missed.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t claim that this is a great novel, so I’m a little at a loss to describe the irrational pleasure it gives me, unless to ascribe it to the pleasure Dunne takes glorying in the seedy details of the mise en scène that he draws for his alter ego, the “pimp lawyer” Dutch Shea, Jr.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure if it was my dislike for this type of lawyer or the fact that it was a bore for me was the reason for not liking it. I kept putting it down saying I would not go back to it but I did go back to it over a months time. I should have left it unread.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather ridiculous tale about a downtrodden defense attorney. I would never have come across this book if it weren't cited for a rather intriguing paragraph in Barbara Babcock's seminal article on public defense, "Defending the Guilty."

[Mickey Mantle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting...I was told to read this book by a lawyer...The fixation of the lawyer with this book kind of baffles me...
It is a great read..not earthshaking.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet more artistry. Why does no one appreciate this man's talents? The protagonist is cauterized by alcohol, death and love.

[Lisa Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book for literature class in college (early 80s) and couldn't find one redeeming thing about it.