“Evening With an Author: Dominick Dunne”

Saturday night, Corinne and I attended a fundraiser dinner in support of the Otis Library of Norwich, at the Meshantucket Pequot Museum. The keynote speaker was the famous author, Dominick Dunne. Corinne's a huge fan, and was very excited about this evening.

The Otis Library is the public library of Norwich, CT. It's in dire need of an overhaul, but they have now raised most of what is needed. Didn't get all the details, but the Meshantucket Pequot Tribal Nation just donated a million dollars, which rather dwarfs the $72K they raised with this charity dinner.

In attendance were most of Norwich's high society (having paid hundreds of dollars per plate)... and us (as guests of Chelsea Groton Bank). We may not have paid so much, but Corinne was the prettiest girl in the room in her new blue dress and fancy, high-heeled, hard-to-walk-in shoes! (I was the, uh... tallest? cyclingest? funniest? ;-)

We arrived at 6 PM, and both had a beer. We thought dinner would start at 7, but it seemed that everyone there knew each other and they were in no hurry to sit down and really start the evening. Finally, a little after 8, they asked -- then told -- everyone to sit down so as it was time to start.

Dinner was served buffet style. The salad was nothing special, but had a tasty blueberry and strawberry vinaigrette dressing that I loved and Corinne detested. The roast beef was out of this world, though. There was also shrimp and scallops, some interesting wild rice, and a truly decadent chocolate pie for dessert.

Amazingly, there was no water at the tables. This drove me nuts! They served it for free at the bar in tiny, eight ounce bottles... but do you know how fast I can go through an eight ounce bottle of water in a stuffy room just a few hours after I've done a 42 mile training ride!?

Ok, we weren't there for the food, nor the water. Dominick Dunne showed up while we were eating and sat at a table with the event's organizers. Once most people had finished eating, they started the serial speech-giving.

The first speech was -- literally -- just a verbatim reading of the first page of the attendee's handbook. I don't remember the second and third speeches, except that the second speaker introduced the third as the most tenacious fundraiser in the history of the world, and warned us all to hold onto our wallets, but all the third speaker really did was introduce the fourth speaker. The fourth was Ellen Lind, president and publisher of the Norwich Bulletin.

Lind was pretty good. She started out a little rough, bragging about how she was going to break all the rules they'd set for her in giving this speech, and might embarrass a few people, but once she settled down and started talking about Mr. Dunne, it was clear that she had at least done a little research before taking the stand. She did her best to describe him as a "real person," not just a star producer, stage manager, and author. As a war hero, a friend, someone who has suffered loss and found success. She didn't get every detail right, and she wasn't a particularly good story teller, but looking back on the evening from two days hence, how could she possibly look good in light of who came next?

Dominick Dunne. He's 79 years old. He's a small man, both short and slender, but his voice is strong, his back is straight, and his eyes are bright. All signs of a man that's still fully alive, completely there.

He wasn't there to talk about the library, of course. He was just there to entertain and amuse, to be the "draw" for the evening. So, he told stories, which -- of course -- is what he does best. He reminded me of my grandfather at his best: funny, fascinating, reminiscent, and carrying so many story threads at once that you think he's just meandering aimlessly until he ties everything up at the end with a neat little bow and you sit there, in the audience, scratching your head. "How'd he do that?"

He talked about a woman coming to visit him, to ask him about his old war (WW II) buddy. (The woman was the buddy's daughter.) He talked about the war, and the saving two men at the Battle of the Bulge that earned him and his buddy each a Bronze Star and a salute from a general. He talked about losing touch with his buddy after the war, and never talking about what happened, but forty years later they saw each other in a café at the Waldorf Astoria, and his friend bragged about being "very successful." Mr. Dunne's response was, "I'm not exactly chopped liver!"

Agreed.

At some point in his story, he casually mentioned "chatting with Steven Spielberg about my (Mr. Dunne's) daughter," who had acted in one of Mr. Spielberg's movies. Anybody else, and I would have called it a very big name-drop, but this is the type of person that Mr. Dunne associates with. (I should mention that his daughter was murdered in her early twenties.)

I can't retell his whole story... it was too long, and I remember the imagery better than the words or the order he presented them. I'm not even sure for how long he spoke! Frankly, I had tunnel vision most of the time. He was fascinating, and the room was utterly silent except for a few interruptions for applause. He did mention the book that he's hoping to have finished by the Fall, which I think he said would be called "A Solo Story." It's semi-autobiographical, and sounds like it'll be very entertaining.

After it was over, someone from the Pequots got up and "closed" the evening with some sort of Pequot Prayer. That was fairly uncomfortable and utterly unexpected, but he translated it for us and all he really did was ask "the creator" to guide us all safely home. Of course, I don't speak Pequot, so he may have actually prayed for all of the settlers to go broke in their little casino. ;-) We'll never know.

Corinne is a real fan of Mr. Dunne, and actually got a chance to meet him, briefly, after the event was over. (Have to admit that I'm a bit of a fan now, too. You have to love a good storyteller.)

Update: Corinne posted about our evening, but didn't link to me! So, I've added a link to her story at the top of this one.