Another City, Not My Own

Rating:
Summary: No, it's a memoir in the form of a novel
Review:

I couldn't imagine what Dominick Dunne could bring so late to the O.J. table. Certainly, every major and minor participant has already published his/her/its version of reality.

Dunne was BRILLIANT to couch his commentary as "a novel in the form of a memoir." And he so cleverly tells us the OTHER story -- the craziness that everyone from the most average guy to the most exalted -- Nancy Reagan, Liz Taylor, even Princess Di -- wrapped ourselves in.

My biggest quibble is in not being able to be quite sure that all the names and places dropped actually happened. It is, after all, a novel and a novel is fiction. I know, for example, that the ending never really occurred, and I doubt that the entire thread leading to that end ever happened. So, DID Dunne (aka protagonist Gus Bailey) really spend most weekends discussing the trial with Liz Taylor? And did he introduce Nancy R. to Heidi F.?

One thing I know for sure: the ending, tho a disappointment to me, sure seems to mean that Dunne will never be a journalist at a trial again, as he keeps insisting thru-out the book.

Or is that just Gus talking?

Rating:
Summary: The Simpson Trial Tour Guide
Review: Having read many of the accounts of the Simpson trial from the principals themselves, I looked forward to Dunne's slant on the saga. Perhaps, an experienced writer would place the trial and repercussions in some worthwhile perspective. Wrong. What Dunne delivers is a dizzying rampage through every possible gathering of any conceivable combination of "celebrities". Although the book is presented in a supposed fictional style, I cannot fathom what the distinction is meant to convey. While the book does include many interesting tidbits about the characters in and around the trial, it is weighted down by an encyclopedic accounting of the author's social encounters. Not my Own, reachs no insights into the ramifications of the Simpson affair larger than the authors resolute outrage. A real disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it. Read it in a day!
Review: I loved Dominick Dunne's version of the OJ trial. Yes, maybe it was more gossip than real meat but enough with the meat. It was fun to read about the LA group and have a brief look into their lives too. I was a little disappointed with the ending. I read the entire book in a day! I hope Mr. Dunne is working on something else!

Rating:
Summary: behind-the-scenes gossip
Review: One of the things I expected to see in this "novel" from Dominick Dunne was his version of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. I am most surprised by the fact that this is a novel of someone allegedly planning to write a novel--not a novel in the form of a memoir.It seems self-serving to hide behind: the persona of Gus Bailey, the conversations that contain alleged truths (e.g.the phone message left on Connie Chung's tape),etc. rather than having the courage to just say the truth as he sees it. Since we know that he believes Simpson guilty,why not write as himself the same behind-the-scenes, intriguing gossip? I find this a quick read and fun because of the revelation of previously unreported information--but still it is an awkward format.

Rating:
Summary: Another OJ book, not well Dunne.
Review: It is truly hard to imagine that a subject as riveting as the Simpson trial could be rendered banal and tiresome but Dunne has done just that. Writing a fictionalized memoir would have offered him the opportunity to speculate and to expand on those aspects of the trial that have remained so elusive. Instead, he focuses on his own inflated importance in the trial as if this had some bearing on the overwhelming tragedy or even some relevance to the proceedings. I found his incessant drone on dining with rich and famous to be increasingly annoying because of the striking irrelevancy to what at least was superficially the subject of the book. What is the point of printing Elizabeth Taylor's opinion about the Simpson trial, not once but multiple times within the book? Who cares about Princess Di's version of the killings? Why is this book called fiction? If it is for the ridiculous ending than I suppose it deserves the label but the rest could easily be titled, "Dominik Dunne Dines with the Stars." Sadly, Dunne, or at least his publisher, realized few would be interested in that.

Rating:
Summary: Should be titled "Namedropping 101"
Review: A very sad effort in my opinion! Dunne has spent too much time with O.J.'s trial, but this is a big waste of time. I've read all his books, but perhaps this one is the last!

Rating:
Summary: Squeezing O.J. Once More...
Review: While attending a Luncheon at L.A. mega-artist Tony Duquette's Bel-Air home, I had occasion to sit with and listen to one of Dominick's many, many 'floor shows' - as his main character, Gus Bailey considers the multitudes of hosts' requests to dish up O.J. gossip at their elite parties. And indeed he was just as enthralling and insightful as the story he writes. Later that same year, a Dinner party at Gordon and Anne Getty's home brought another chance meeting with the fab Dunne and once again his keen insights held enrapt a table of San Francisco socialites. I began to notice however, how Dunne's own musings on the trial were becoming increasingly personal and so I waited anxiously everytime he'd say "It'll all be in my novel." for it's publication. It is no surprise to me that Dunne chose a quasi Nathaniel West "Day of the Locust" route for his fictional memoir (an allusion he makes reference to often in his book). By trial and books'end and clamouring out of the American Legal system is not the truth, or even Darden's precious 'Baby Justice,' but an obvious downward spiraling madness that swept a city, certainly, perhaps a nation - and a few international celebs. For those who feel that Dunne's book makes up in name-dropping what it lacks in content, is to miss entirely the point of what Wealth, Power and the ends by which image and self-preservation are served. The trial was one giant Name-Dropping event; so many called, so few examined. Consider this novel Dunne's way of examining the trial, and our breathlessly waif culture and his own horrific realization of what his role as journalist-storyteller has actually been all these years. Certainly the ending of the book, so incestuous to it's main theme, cannot elude even the most irony-blind. This book sews up one wound, and quickly cuts another. As a fictional memoir, it is wicked, grimy and candid. As a mirror that we'll stare at for years to come - we'll wonder why we keep refusing to see all those little cracks.

Rating:
Summary: "Nick" Dunne revisits LA and makes it his own.
Review: For fast-pace, high-society fun, there is no better writer then Dominick Dunne, mascarading in Another City, Not My Own as Gus Bailey, a character first introduced by Dunne in his previous novel People Like Us. This book satisfies those looking for gossipy, saucey tales about the high and mighty of Los Angeles. The book fails just a bit when compared to Dunne's other books because he uses real names and relates the events of the OJ Simpson (yawn) trial in a much more accurate way then is usually his style. Also, Dunne takes away from a bit of the fun of his previous novels by telling us who was who even in those books. I mean, wasn't it more fun as a reader to be able to know that Pauline Mendelson in An Inconvenient Woman was based on LA socialite--and Nancy Reagan galpal--Betsy Bloomingdale? It seems that in Another City, Dunne goes out of his way to "demyth" his other books. Readers of those previous books enjoyed smugly thinking that they were smart enough to figure things out for themselves. One could read those and feel entitled to utter, "NOCD" about those not in the know. But for pure, delicious enjoyment, Dominick Dunne keeps us turning the pages in another book, all his own. Nick Valenziano

Rating:
Summary: Name dropping as an art form
Review: This book should be titled "The OJ Dinners". Few people had access to as much information about the prinicple characters in the Simpson trial as Dominick Dunne. He has squandered an opportunity to write an important book, and settled for a name dropping, gossip-laden barely-fictionalized account of the proceedings. Anyone looking for a factual review of the trial should look elsewhere. What the book does, however, is give the reader an exceptional account of the circus atmosphere surrounding the trial and the bizarre nature of the fame which came to the participants. What is the difference between Vanity Fair and the National Enquirer? Celebrities will talk with a Vanity Fair reporter. After that, the distinctions become somewhat blurred.

Rating:
Summary: Who wrote this book---surely not Dominick Dunne!!!
Review: Mr. Dunne---and his editor---would have done better to have just left in the "letters to Vanity Fair" and cut all the other prose from this book. We all already know D.D. hobknobs with the rich and infamous. Given his past writings, his trenchant reports to "Vanity Fair" and his daughter's murder, I expected so much more of this book. However, it was just an embarrassment---more Kitty Kelly than Dominick Dunne. What a bore!