Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed!
Review: Well I'm gratified to see that others were disappointed in Dunne's latest effort. Sometimes I think I expect too much ... especially since I had such fun (years ago, I admit) with The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. I generally choose my film by director, just as I am used to selecting books by authors. This just doesn't work all the time, does it?
Rating: 
Summary: Rotten apple!
Review: I just finished reading this book and had to rush to the internet to find out if I was the only one who is absolutely stunned at the absurdity of this novel. Disbelief is my primary reaction. I honestly can't believe that such a fine author could take such an urgent subject and turn it into such an almost unreadable jumble of meandering fact and fiction. It was not engrossing enough for me to muster the energy to glean a possible hidden message. If there was one, it was very well hidden under tons of society minutae. If you haven't read any of his other books, please don't be put off by this one. It is the rotten apple in an otherwise juicy barrel.
Rating:
Summary: Best thing: it has the keys to all his other novels
Review: I've liked several of Dominick Dunne's other novels. For me, the best thing about _this_ one is most of his other novels evidently are _romans a clef_. Well, this novel has the keys. The protagonist of this novel, Gus Bailey, is a writer of novels entitled "An Inconvenient Woman," "A Season in Purgatory," "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," etc. From time to time Dunne will say things like "_An Inconvenient Woman_ was about the murder of the mistress of Jules Mendelson, the billionare friend of the President of the United States." So if, like me, you were so out of it that you didn't know that these earlier books were really about Jules Mendelson or Betsy Bloomingdale or whatever, and if, UNLIKE me, it means something to you when you find out, this is the book for you... But it's not much of a _novel_. What you really think of it probably depends mostly on what you think about the O. J. Simpson trial. Many will find that Dominick Dunne speaks for them. Dunne evidently believes LAPD racism was a nonissue, and was just a transparent pretext used by a racist Johnnie Cochran to give a racist jury a fig leaf to cover a racist verdict. Those who agree with Dunne will enjoy this book more than those who do not.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Done! Spirited, In-Depth, Insightful, Newsworthy!
Review: I truly enjoyed reading Dunne's "Another City..." especially as a finale to all that's been published about the Trial of the Century. Everyone is here and they all contribute in this memoir from the front row!
Rating: 
Summary: An o.k. read...creepy ending
Review: I read this book while on vacation and found it rather dull. I agree with many of the other reviewers, there was too much name dropping. I thought the suprise ending was just too creepy. At the end of the book I felt like Gus should weigh 300 pounds for all the food he ate and have sore elbows from all the celebrity elbow rubbing. An o.k. read.
Rating:
Summary: don't bother
Review: This book felt forced and pointless. I got the sense he'd said he was going to do a novel and had gotten an advance, and then he just felt obligated to turn in just anything. Because that's what this is: just anything. It's a numbing list of glitzy people and parties interlarded with whispered nuggets of OJ-iana. There's no plot, few fresh observations, and little insight into what happened. The character, Gus, if truly based on Dominick Dunne, reveals a sad and wearying self-disgust.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting!
Review: There isn't much more to say. This book was my introduction to the fabulous work of Dominick Dunne, father of a murder victim, who is steadfast and passionate in his pursuit of justice--for all, not just the rich and the celebrated. If you had even a fleeting interest in the "debacle of the century", which involved a now-infamous football figure, bloody gloves and a a three-ring circus that masquaraded as a trial, read it. And everything and anything else by Dominick Dunne!
Rating:
Summary: NOT just another O.J. book.....
Review: I see why Mr. Dunne wrote this as a novel. It gave him a tad more freedom to name names and quote off the record remarks. If any of this is fiction it is believable fiction. I felt that he took this book personally, more than most of the others. It seems as though he burned a lot of bridges with this book, perhaps as a way of forcing himself away from the genre. I hope I'm wrong.....
Rating: 
Summary: A not-quite novel about fame and crime
Review: At first I thought the incessant name-dropping was pathetic (living in Los Angeles, I have come to think of name-droppers as pathetic). Then I realized that the book was actually about fame, more than the trial or the crime. The celebrity names become a mantra for a meditation about fame in our times. Dunne explores the various kinds of fame--from those newly famous for their notoriety in the case (Faye Resnick), to those who courted fame (Robert Shapiro), to those who had fame cruelly thrust upon them (the Goldmans). At the center is the enigma of O.J. Simpson, a D-list actor who became an object of fascination to the A-list celebrity circles he wanted to join. Simpson wouldn't have had a prayer of socializing with the likes of Elizabeth Taylor or Nancy Reagan or the Gregory Pecks. He was too low in the Hollywood hierarchy. But through his trial he became as well known as any of them. And the fortunes of Dunne's protagonist, Gus Bailey, also rise as the trial continues. Although Bailey is appalled by the crime, he is a beneficiary of it. The names he drops become more and more illustrious. As he moves through the intersecting circles of fame in Los Angeles, he reveals the context of the crimes, the criminal, and the verdict. He also managed to evoke the odd atmosphere of Los Angeles during the time of the trial.
Rating:
Summary: This novel was a major disappointment.
Review: Reading books about the Simpson case is a lot like watching the trial--no matter how bad things get, it's hard to quit looking. Dunne's inexplicable decision to turn his fine reporting of this case into a novel, instead of a straightforward memoir of his year covering the trial, seems a fatal flaw. The reader is left constantly wondering, and therefore distracted by, the issue of whether the events in any scene actually took place, or are fiction. Dunne was a powerful voice for morality in a case that certainly needed one. Disappointingly, a compilation of his essays from Vanity Fair, with some added commentary, would have created a much better final product. I would urge interested readers to turn to Jeffrey Toobin's The Run of His Life, or Mark Fuhrman's A Murder in Brentwood, which is my personal favorite.
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