True Confessions (novel)
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True Confessions (novel)
''True Confessions'' is a noir fiction, noir novel by John Gregory Dunne and published in 1977. The novel was inspired by an actual event, the 1947 Black Dahlia murder. Plot Los Angeles, 1946: Lois Fazenda is found cut in two pieces in a vacant lot after the murderer has taunted on the corpse. Due to the nickname "The Virgin Tramp", given to her just to please a journalist, a "nice quiet little homicide that would have drifted off the front pages in a couple of days" becomes the center of a storm. Two brothers, Tom and Desmond Spellacy, are the protagonists of this corrosive romance of Irish-Catholic life in California shortly after World War II. Tom is a lieutenant of the Homicide Division in charge of the case, not very honest but good in his job, and Desmond is a skillful and quickly ascending monsignor who has already been chosen to become the next bishop. The investigation offers the background to narrate with ironic and vulgar language, full of racist and homophobic terms ...
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John Gregory Dunne
John Gregory Dunne (May 25, 1932 – December 30, 2003) was an American writer. He began his career as a journalist for ''Time (magazine), Time'' Time (magazine), magazine before expanding into writing criticism, essays, novels, and screenplays. He often collaborated with his wife, Joan Didion. Early life Dunne was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and was a younger brother of author Dominick Dunne. He was the son of Dorothy Frances (née Burns) and Richard Edwin Dunne (1894–1946), a hospital chief of staff and prominent heart surgeon. With several siblings, he grew up in a large, wealthy Irish Catholic family. Their maternal grandfather, Dominick Francis Burns (1857–1940), founded the Park Street Trust Company. The young Dunne developed a severe stutter and took up writing to express himself. He learned to manage it by observing others. He attended the Portsmouth Abbey School, Portsmouth Priory School and graduated from Princeton University in 1954, where he was member of Tiger ...
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Thomas H
Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (other) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Apostle * Thomas (bishop of the East Angles) (fl. 640s–650s), medieval Bishop of the East Angles * Thomas (Archdeacon of Barnstaple) (fl. 1203), Archdeacon of Barnstaple * Thomas, Count of Perche (1195–1217), Count of Perche * Thomas (bishop of Finland) (1248), first known Bishop of Finland * Thomas, Earl of Mar (1330–1377), 14th-century Earl, Aberdeen, Scotland Geography Places in the United States * Thomas, Illinois * Thomas, Indiana * Thomas, Oklahoma * Thomas, Oregon * Thomas, South Dakota * Thomas, Virginia * Thomas, Washington * Thomas, West Virginia * Thomas County (other) * Thomas Township (other) Elsewhere * Thomas Glacier (Greenland) Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Thomas'' (Burton novel) 1969 novel ...
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American Novels Adapted Into Films
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ...
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Novels Set In Los Angeles
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historic ...
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Novels Set In The 1940s
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ...
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1977 American Novels
Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). * January 17 ** 49 marines from the and are killed as a result of a collision in Barcelona harbour, Spain. * January 18 ** Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease. ** Australia's worst railway disaster at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, leaves 83 people dead. ** SFR Yugoslavia Prime minister Džemal Bijedić, his wife and 6 others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina. * January 19 – An Ejército del Aire CASA C-207C Azor (registration T.7-15) plane crashes into the side of a mountain near Chiva, on approach to Valencia Airport in Spain, killing all 11 people on board. * January 20 – Jimmy Carter is sworn in as the 39th Pres ...
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Joan Didion
Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer. Along with Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Gay Talese, she is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism. Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by ''Vogue'' magazine. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s, the Hollywood lifestyle and California culture and history. Didion's political writing in the 1980s and 1990s often concentrated on the subtext of political and social rhetoric. In 1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005, Didion won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for ''The Year of Magical Thinking'', a memoir of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne. She late ...
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Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Duvall began appearing in theater in the early 1950s, moving into television and film roles during the early 1960s, playing Boo Radley in ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' (1962) and appearing in '' Captain Newman, M.D.'' (1963), as Major Frank Burns in the blockbuster comedy ''M*A*S*H'' (1970) and the lead role in ''THX 1138'' (1971), as well as Horton Foote's adaptation of William Faulkner's '' Tomorrow'' (1972), which was developed at The Actors Studio and is his personal favorite. This was followed by a series of critically lauded performances in commercially successful films. In 1984 Duvall won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the film ...
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Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2009, De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honor, and earned a Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016. Born in Manhattan in New York City, De Niro studied acting at HB Studio, Stella Adler Conservatory, and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. His first major role was in ''Greetings'' (1968), and he gained early recognition with his role as a baseball player in the sports drama ''Bang the Drum Slowly'' (1973). De Niro's first collaboration with Scorsese was ''Mean Streets'' (1973), where he played small-time crook "Johnny Boy". Stardom followed with his role as young Vito Corleon ...
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Ulu Grosbard
Israel "Ulu" Grosbard (9 January 1929 – 19 March 2012) was a Belgian-born, naturalized American theatre and film director and film producer. Life and career Born in Antwerp, Grosbard was the son of Rose (Tenenbaum) and Morris Grosbard, who worked in business and as a diamond merchant. Grosbard emigrated to Havana with his family in 1942; they were fleeing the persecution of Jews by the German occupiers of Belgium during World War II. In 1948, they moved to the United States, where he earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Chicago. He studied then at the Yale School of Drama for one year before joining the United States Army. Grosbard became a naturalized citizen in 1954. Grosbard gravitated towards theatre when he relocated to New York City in the early 1960s. After directing ''The Days and Nights of BeeBee Fenstermaker'' off-Broadway, he earned his first Broadway credit with ''The Subject Was Roses'', for which he was nominated for the Tony A ...
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True Confessions (film)
''True Confessions'' is a 1981 American neo-noir crime drama film directed by Ulu Grosbard and starring Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall as the brothers Spellacy, a priest and police detective. Produced by Chartoff-Winkler Productions, it is adapted from the novel of the same name by John Gregory Dunne, loosely based on the Black Dahlia murder case of 1947. Dunne wrote the screenplay with his wife, novelist Joan Didion. The film was released on September 25, 1981, receiving generally positive reviews from critics. Plot In 1948, Rev. Desmond Spellacy is a young and ambitious Roman Catholic monsignor in the Los Angeles archdiocese. His older brother Tom is a hard-working homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. They are fond of each other, but spend little time together. Des is the pride and joy of aging Cardinal Danaher because of his skill at developing church projects while keeping down costs. He cuts a corner now and then, overlooking the shady side of constru ...
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The New York Times Best Seller List
''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times bestsellers since the first list, 50 years ago'', Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1992. Since October 12, 1931, ''The New York Times Book Review'' has published the list weekly. In the 21st century, it has evolved into multiple lists, grouped by genre and format, including fiction and non-fiction, hardcover, paperback and electronic. The list is based on a proprietary method that uses sales figures, other data and internal guidelines that are unpublished—how the ''Times'' compiles the list is a trade secret. In 1983 (as part of a legal argument), the ''Times'' stated that the list is not mathematically objective but rather editorial content. In 2017, a ''Times'' representative said that the goal is that the lists reflect authentic best selle ...
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