Another City, Not My Own: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir (Hardcover)

The only thing dopier than the cameo by Princess Diana (who, Cassandra-like, divines the ending of the trial, as if her royalty somehow gifted her with extrasensory perception) is the incredibly self-congratulatory ending. Save your money and read one of Dunne's other, and actually enjoyable romans a clef, such as A SEASON IN PURGATORY or THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES.

As far as OJ goes, I really liked the excerpts from Dunne's "Vanity Fair" columns and I wish I had read these throughout the trial. The mixture of these serious expository pieces with the day-to-day gossip and name-dropping that the rest of the book employs creates an interesting combination. The book is 400+ pages long but it goes very quickly, it's a fun book to read. I appear to be one of the few people who didn't mind the ending -- I figure it's Dunne's time to move on to other things and what better way to accomplish this than by writing the ending he did. Sometimes fictional characters get too busy and involved in real life for the writer's own good and the only way to alleviate the problem is to send that fictional character some place else. Btw, did we all notice Dunne's mentioning that he is a close friend of Lucianne Goldberg's? But maybe he's saving that for another book.....

With so many books about the trial, the question of this book's worth is probably whether it adds anything new. In some respects, Dunne does contribute to our understanding of the case by sharing insights about the main players, from the defense team to the prosecution to some of the witnesses. Of course, we are told that the book is fiction, and that fact mitigates against the faith we can put in Dunne's tales. Some of the events are obviously fictitious, but some are patently real. Where the truth lies is something Dunne evidently would prefer to avoid disclosing.

One of the more curious aspects of "Another City, Not My Own" is that Bailey/Dunne repeatedly laments the people who would rather tell him what they know than tell officials. At the same time, Dunne himself is being exceedingly less than forthright in using the literary structure he does. We are told to believe in Simpson's factual guilt because of the hearsay Bailey/Dunne hears, but the result is merely one of preaching to those who have made up their minds one way or the other. In the end, one must wonder to what end this book was written, aside from the net effect on Mr. Dunne's bank statement. If the book is purely fiction, then one wonders why such a fictional account is necessary. If the book is mostly non-fiction, then why disclaim it as Dunne does? Finally, if the book is a mixture of fact and fiction (as it is), how are we to know what is what?