Dominick Dunne was a ringside witness to the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, about which he wrote extensively for
Vanity Fair magazine. In
Another City, Not My Own, he revisits the case, this time in fictional form. In this "novel in the form of a memoir," Dunne's fiction skates perilously close to fact in most instances. O.J., Marcia Clark, Johnnie Cochran, and a whole host of celebrity characters keep their own names while the life story of protagonist Gus Bailey closely follows Dunne's own. Like Dunne, Bailey--who has appeared in previous works by the author--is a journalist, the father of a murdered child and thus a keen chronicler of the American justice system. The O.J. Simpson trial is a natural magnet for such a man.
Throughout the novel, Bailey spends his days in the courtroom and his evenings at celebrity-studded soirees; names such as Heidi Fleiss, Elizabeth Taylor, and Kirk Douglas punctuate the narrative as Dunne comments on the case, the sensibilities of both the accused and his accusers, and the roles of race, fame, and guilt in America today. But shocking as the Simpson case was, Dunne's denouement to his fictional memoir is so bizarre that it may well eclipse the verdict entirely.
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