cover image Don't You Forget About Me

Don't You Forget About Me

Jancee Dunn, . . Villard, $24 (276pp) ISBN 978-0-345-50190-5

Memoirist (But Enough About Me ) and Rolling Stone writer Dunn turns in a first-class piece of reunion lit. After her husband announces “I'm bored by our life” and leaves, childless Manhattanite Lillian Curtis, almost 38, takes a sabbatical from producing Tell Me Everything! —a talk show geared toward senior citizens—and heads for her childhood home in Morristown, N.J., to lick her wounds. The break is suggested by Tell Me 's wise star Vi Barbour (“Vi is short for vibrant!”), whom Lillian adores, and it gives Lillian a chance to attend her class of '88 high school reunion and reclaim her old self. Lillian's old boyfriend, Christian Somer, is still single, still hot and in town, and getting smashed at the beach and making out might be just the thing. The setup is beyond familiar, but Dunn's delicious wit enlivens this sparkling dramedy, depicting the perils of trying to recapture a John Hughes–era past that doesn't belong in the present. (July)