What I Learned from Dominick Dunne

The death of Ted Kennedy on August 26 led all the news cycles, as it should have. But because of that wall-to-wall coverage of Kennedy’s passing, I didn’t know until this morning that author Dominick Dunne had also died.

I met Ted Kennedy once, when he stayed at the Hotel Bel-Air, where I was a waiter. I remember he brought his own Beluga caviar to the hotel — something I’d never seen anyone else do — and ordered the fixings (toast points, etc.) from room service. As celebrity encounters go, it was barely a drive-by; we may have exchanged a dozen words, tops.

But, despite the fact I never met Dominick Dunne, he influenced my life in a strange but instructive way.

I had read a novel of his called A Season in Purgatory, in which the golden-boy son in a family much like the Kennedys murders a girl…

Tags: Tags: fiction, harrison, justice, life lessons, novel, true crime