Book reviews: an insider’s account of the OJ Simpson murder trial
Plus: an unfamiliar take on incarceration as the coming-of-age story of a civilian cook, and the latest slice of memoirist Augusten Burroughs’ life
In Contempt
By Christopher Darden
Graymalkin Media (e-book)
3/5 stars
You can’t keep a good murder case down, not when it has so much potential for earning so many entertainment dollars. And not many have greater potential than the case of the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman, starring that upstanding hero of screen and stadium, ex-American footballer and jobbing actor O.J. Simpson. It was the case that had everything: a seemingly guilty celebrity facing a potential death penalty, blood, gore, a bizarre highway chase shown live on air that brought in record ratings and, at the end of it all, a not-guilty verdict that amplified the already toxic wedge the televised trial had helped thrust between black and white America. Today the case remains in robust health thanks to the likes of a recent blockbuster TV series and, now in electronic format, an insider’s account written in the fallout of a verdict neither the pro- nor anti-Simpson ranks could quite believe. Over-dramatised at times – thanks perhaps to its ghost writer – In Contempt nevertheless encapsulates in explication and title co-prosecutor Chris Darden’s feelings for a discredited judge, the American judicial system, his courtroom adversaries and the rampant racism that coloured proceedings.