Another City, Not My Own

Rating:
Summary: Touching
Review: While at first glance, ANOTHER CITY, NOT MY OWN, seems to be a barely fictionalized first-person report by a writer covering the O.J. Simpson trial, it actually is far more significant than the news event it purportedly documents.

There is no escaping that this "novel" (in the form of a "memoir," the cover of the book tells buyers) is a personal anecdote about author Dominick Dunne. As a result, it is self-revelatory in the extreme. Dunne does not spare himself when he recounts his life. The story of his marriage, and of his daughter's murder, inescapably are touching. Once this novel--or memoir--has been completed, these are the details which stay with a reader, not the additional account of the Simpson trial.

There is no escaping that Dunne was born under some combined influence of stars and planets which has planted him, over and over, in places which allowed him to witness, from the inside, some of the most important social events of the 20th century. As a result, his memoir makes for fascinating reading.

Rating:
Summary: MERELY HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP
Review: I started reading this book as I wanted to know about the O.J.Simpson trial. What do I get? Some Hollywood [stuff] about the author's schedule of dinner parties, at fashionable houses and restaurants and gossip; not facts about the trial. Am I supposed to be impressed by all the name droppings, self promotion and his invitations to posh houses? I'm not. Neither am I interested in Hollywood gossip. The guy is so [sad] trying to be with the "in crowd" that I felt quite sorry for him. I cannot believe how shallow the book is. ...This I believe, is a best seller, only because some Hollywood women, who have nothing better to do than give parties, go shopping and laze around, bought the book as they or someone known to them were in it. This is the first and the last time I read Dominic Dunne.

Rating:
Summary: Truman Capote Lives...
Review: This book is shameless, and I couldn't put it down. I kept thinking I was reading Truman Capote in his later years, when his secret-spilling and indiscrete name-dropping made him persona non grata in upper-class society.

In this "fiction memoir," Gus Bailey, aka Dominick Dunne, covers the OJ Simpson trial in Los Angeles by day, and parties with just about every known celebrity at night. Dunne himself covered the trial and wrote about it extensively for Vanity Fair magazine. So does his fictional character. In fact, the book contains many excerpts from Dunne's columns, as "written by" Gus Bailey. Dunne appeared as a talking head on just about every known TV show of the 90s, from Larry King on down. So does Bailey. The in-your-face name-dropping, braggadocio ("I was seated between Princess Margaret and...") and sheer unadulterated dish never stops.

I would like to say that the book is shallow and boring. It may be shallow, but it certainly isn't boring--the gossip is irresistible and mind-boggling. Dunne's extraordinary conclusion to this book has to be read to be believed--it might be the ULTIMATE in name-dropping.

I have been a fan of Dominick Dunne for some time, beginning with "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," which I thought was a worthwhile and well-written book. I felt the same about "A Season in Purgatory," and I find the televised Dunne to be erudite and informative. But "Another City," as fun to read as it is, is simply down and dirty dish, from page one to the end. That's what brought down Capote in the end--and I'm wondering if it will ultimately lead to Dunne's literary denoument as well. It will be interesting to watch.

Rating:
Summary: smarmy but lots of fun to read
Review: I had never read anything by Dominick Dunne before this book and I only dimly remember seeing him on TV news/talk shows during the OJ trial but I've become quite enchanted with him as a result of reading this book. He certainly seems to lead a charmed and very interesting life, green leather notebooks and all.

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.....

Rating:
Summary: Must read for the OJ trial fanatic!
Review: I personally loved this fictionalized "true" story of the OJ trial. I read Dunn faithfully in Vanity Fair and really don't mind all his name dropping. (I think it adds a bit of reality and glamor) The use of "Gus" as his alter ego was a neat twist as well and could make the ending even better than the real thing. The city of LA really becomes another character in this book as well. I'd recommend it to round out any OJ-Trial collection.

Rating:
Summary: Fame. Ain't it A B....?
Review: ...Dunne has a bespeckled elfinlike quality about him which makes you feel that he ought to be made a mystery hero ala Nero Wolf, Ellery Queen or Christie's Hercule Poirot. His alter-ego, Gus Bailey, could have created a mystery franchise, but this novel/memoir probably was more of a catharsis for Dunne. After all the frustration of his work for the Vanity Fair coverage of the Simpson case, the loss of his daughter and just trying to maintain, he needed to write. And the fact that he's been outcasted from Hollywood high society--not really outcasted, but he's switched from being Hollywood producer to Hollywood correspondent--he's been privy to many a high scandal in high society story. Like the Bulows story, the Menendez Brothers mystery and this, which is about the OJ Simpson trials, essentially.

Here's a blue brint on how Dunne/Gus Bailey gets the goods, and the dirty business of the real stories behind any crime or scandal. He talks to gas station attendants, waiters, bartenders, legal assistants and ex-wives of the famous, ex-husbands of the famous wives, wanna be models, second string actors and actresses and those recently introduced--ie, thrown into--fame and celebrity. He as well knows the already famous and powerful he somehow gets the scuttlebutt on what happens thru they seem to be talking about. It makes this novel a name dropping, jaw dropping, fast paced, page turner. Who in America is not obsessed with celebrity and their excesses? And how could you not be rivetted to this drama--Gus said himself, he could not have made a better fictionalisation what was enfolding to him in real life from the Simpson case.

And the ins and outs Dunne chooses to toss at the reader--Andrew Cunanan shows up at a function where Marcia Clark is rubbing elbows with Kirk Douglas, Rich Pryor scolds his caretaker/ex-wife not to talk about OJ because it would just be just another thing that would make it harder for Rich and that minority of 'cool' black Hollywood icons, how Mrs Lance Ito's relationship with Fuhrman may have influenced the out come, and Faye Resnick(!?!)--little snippets of infobytes, makes for compelling reading whatever you feel about the Simpson trials.

Check out Mr. Dunne's commentation on a series of high society crimes on Court TV. Some folks say he may be a kindred spirit in the Capote mode, but I put him closer to John Walsh. He's easily one of my favorites...

Rating:
Summary: The Joys of Name Dropping...
Review: This novel in the form of memoir is filled with thinly veiled fictional that exactly follows Dunne's life in LA during the Simpson murder trials. He even quotes his actual articles from Vanity Fair at the beginning of each chapter. Nevertheless, this book is filled with wonderful and fascinating scenes. Who knew that Nancy Reagan met Heidi Fleiss? Or that Princess Margaret found the trial to be a bore? That that Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and Elizabeth Taylor were all fascinated by the trial? Several reviewers have admonished Dunne for name dropping. That is absurd. Dunne admits he does it, and frankly, it is fun. This isn't as much about the trial as the life outside of it and that was terrific new perspective. The ending of this novel could be called almost comic and Dunne took a lot of heat for it, but it makes an important point about celebrity in our culture. I don't want to ruin the mystery, although it becomes obivous early on. One could argue that Bailey (Dunne), who lived through celebrity gossip and stories, that he died by the proverbial sword. There is a certain poetic justice to it. Nevertheless, a juicy read for those still fascinated by the OJ trial and Dunne.

Rating:
Summary: Only a little more than you ever wanted to know
Review: I didn't devote that many hours to watching or reading about the OJ Simpson trial at the time it happened, so it was fun to gain some knowledge about what happened from one point of view. I would guess that most of the conversations and events in this book really happened, and are couched as fiction to avoid betraying confidences or risking lawsuits. No objectivity here, but if you want some interesting interpretation from the point of view of someone who was present for the trial and undoubtedly talked with many of the players, I would highly recommend this book. If you have no interest in OJ Simpson and whether or not he killed Nicole and Ronald, I'd probably skip it.

Rating:
Summary: Tabloid Proust
Review: Gus Bailey returns to a city from his past, Los Angeles, to cover the OJ trial for Vanity Fair. A native of Connecticut, Gus has behind him a failed career as film producer in tinseltown, as well as the trauma of a murdered child and a trial of her killer which he felt betrayed the principle of justice. Arranging his accommodation at the Chateau Marmont, Gus finds copies of a previous novel of his displayed in a vitrine in the lobby; as homage he's put up in the room of the hotel which he featured in that novel. And so the recursive mirroring between life and fiction that structures this novel begins. Gus has remade himself as a quality journalist, a kind of tabloid Proust who eavesdrops at the tables of the rich and famous and retails his information in suavely persuasive opinion pieces. In fact, it was Dominick Dunne who chronicled the trial for Vanity Fair, and indeed it was Dominick Dunne who experienced just about everything Gus Bailey experiences in this novel.

Dunne calls Another City, Not My Own "a novel in the form of a memoir," and the book clearly relives one chapter of the Dunne life saga. Bailey has Dunne's past and predilections, although the novelistic frame makes it unclear what purports to be truth and what is subject to the laws of fiction. Bailey carries a notebook with him to record encounters as they happen, often describing their planned appearance in the novel he is writing about the case - a novel called, appropriately, Another City, Not My Own. Fiction becomes the repository of what may not be said in journalism - libel, gossip, rumor - as well as of a poetic truth in events which real life often fails to achieve, although there's much to be thought poetic and uncanny in the story of the trial.

Dominick Dunne writes of Gus Bailey's living room: "the orchid plants, the Chinese export porcelain, the leather-bound first editions of Anthony Trollope and Edith Wharton." It's interesting to speculate on Dunne's own debt to the two novelists mentioned, authors each responsible for exhaustive chronicles of a mode de vie. Social comedy and satire are Dunne's tools of trade, although at times the book reads something like a cross between the Warhol diaries and Truman Capote with a bug up his ... The cavalcade of names dropped, connections traced, and glittering social occasions works because the book is intensely readable: compelling for those who wish to imagine themselves one step closer to the "truth" of the trial, even when it is cast in ambiguous fiction. Few of the characters of this novel are fictional, and few of the events, one suspects. Its conclusion is necessarily contrived, a rather abrupt and melodramatic reminder of how unreal fiction may become. I liked, though, Dunne's urge to expand his chronicle with this gesture to the improbable, a moment of satirical invention that finally severs

Rating:
Summary: The Final Verdict
Review: For OJ to be guilty, you must believe that he quickly disposed of the bloody clothes, shoes, and knives so they would NEVER be found, yet brought the socks and glove back to his home! And then smeared blood all over the console!

The coroner who did the autopsies testified "the forensic evidence says the murders occurred after 11PM". The limousine driver testified he brought OJ to the airport at that time. When you read this book, note how they avoid discussing these facts.