dventures Among the Absurdly Famous' by Jancee Dunn
HarperCollins, $24.95, 288 pages
By Melissa Silvestri
Published: June 13th, 2006 | 3:10pm
You may have seen Jancee Dunn host MTV2 in the mid-‘90s, looking like a
downtown indie chick while introducing the latest Blur video. Or maybe
you’ve read her Rolling Stone features on Madonna, U2, and Brad Pitt.
She's one of the leading voices of rock journalism,
and in her new
book, But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl's Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly
Famous, she details her accelerated rise from being a shy Jersey girl
growing up among
a close-knit family to navigating the glamorous rock world through lucrative
job assignments with Rolling Stone. Dunn writes of her adventures both
as a seasoned insider and as an excited fan, in disbelief and thrilled that
this is what she gets to do for a living.
She poses as
Ben Affleck’s girlfriend for a few minutes to witness the frantic paparazzi
shooting candids of
Ben and his “rebound girl.” Loretta Lynn bakes peanut butter and chocolate
fudge with Dunn — when it doesn’t come out right, Lynn sends Dunn a
package of the dessert to her
apartment, claiming “This is how it’s supposed to be!” And when
she purposely accuses Dolly
Parton of lying about eating Velveeta to maintain her country roots, Parton
becomes indignant
and shows off her pantry closet full of Velveeta and SPAM, including a ceramic
pig jar full of
bacon grease.
Besides her
glamourous adventures, the chapters follow Dunn’s life and her close
relationship to her loving and unique family: her father, a longtime J.C. Penney’s
salesman (a
family legacy so revered that a bust of Mr. Penney’s head was proudly displayed
in the den) and
worrywart who frets about “disaster lurking around every corner — financial
ruin, squandered
health, airbags failing to deploy — so he tends to use fear as a parenting tool
to goad his daughters
into being more prepared”; her caring mother who keeps up a Southern belle
attitude in New
Jersey for years and would use colorful Southern expressions like "I’m
going to slap you upside
that wall" and discipline her daughter through dismaying staredowns;
and her younger sisters, who
keep Dunn grounded in the world when she feels like a lone traveler on her Rolling
Stone
expeditions and living in her small Manhattan apartment.
What is surprising
and warm about her memoir is how grounded and honest Dunn is about her life,
which seems charmed and exciting to the reader. Despite her public persona as
the cool,
hip, smart, and funny twenty-something gal with access to major celebrities,
Dunn admits that she
gravitates towards being more introverted and interested in the Civil War and
Charlotte Bronte’s
mysterious death than she is in clubbing and schmoozing with the stars, not
fitting in as a savvy
hipster like her colleagues. She calls her family while on interviewing trips,
feeling as if she’ll be unmasked as a fraud by the icy, seasoned celebrities
jaded by
years of formulaic interviews. At one point, she invites her mother on an interviewing
jaunt,
wanting to share the experience and have her mother break the ice with original
questions.
Jancee Dunn’s
book is one of the best memoirs to have come out this year. It appeals to
readers looking for celebrity gossip, but they will also discover an intelligent,
funny, and spirited
young woman who has remained true to her Jersey Girl integrity and how she has
found her place
in rock journalism without compromising her ideals for celebrity-by-association.
Issue #35
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