Tara Turkington=20
I Want to Tell You by OJ Simpson=20 (Little, Brown, R80,99)=20
Orenthal James Simpson, ex-American football star,=20 congenial endorser of Hertz Rent-a-Car and mediocre=20 actor, ousted the United States’ afternoon TV soaps by=20 leading Los Angeles police on a televised car chase in=20 June last year. =20
Now on trial for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole=20 Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, Simpson is=20 still capturing that type of attention in the most=20 widely covered murder case ever. The writers of Loving=20 couldn’t have scripted the whole thing better if they’d=20
Now you too can enhance your vicarious experience of=20 the Orange Juice saga, and waste a few hours reading I=20 Want to Tell You, Simpson’s supposed response to the 300=20 000-plus letters he got from fans around the world.=20
Predictably enough, the book is 208 pages of self- indulgent waffle that ingeniously mentions nothing of=20 consequence about the whole grisly story or the trial.=20 We’re warned that 96 percent of the letters Simpson=20 received were religious in tone — and those reproduced=20 show it. Simpson reveals that he just loves reading the=20 Bible, comparing himself to the long-suffering Job when=20 he catches athlete’s foot in jail. His favourite word,=20 it seems, is “spiritual”.=20
If the text didn’t extort an “ag shame” reaction, the=20 pictures surely will. Four sets of glossy photos, under=20 the titles like “Pictures I love” and “Loving memories”,=20 paint a portrait of Simpson the doting family man with=20 his clan in glossy locations. Look out for bikini-clad=20 Nicole holding three-month-old Sydney, Hawaiian palms=20 waving in the background, and the family on Aspen’s=20 trendy ski-slopes. Then there’s Nicole and OJ on the=20 Orient Express, in Monte Carlo and Laguna Beach,=20 California. Too bad the reproduction of the happy snaps=20 is a bit fuzzy and Simpson’s housekeeper, who scurried=20 around to get the collection together, seems to have=20 duplicated some of the events in different photographs.=20
Ghost-written by a vague acquaintance of Simpson’s,=20 Lawrence Schiller, after 10 visits to his cell, this=20 book is a case-study in nauseating self-pity. =20