If I Did It – O.J. Simpson

“If I did it, this is what happened.”

Why did you choose this book?

O.J. Simpson is a name that almost everyone knows. It is one that — at one point in time — was displayed across every newspaper heading, book cover, and television screen across the country. However, throughout my whole entire life, all I had ever known of this man was pieced together from snippets of conversations, brief references, and solemn expressions. If you had asked me who O.J. Simpson was a year ago, I would have merely shrugged and shook my head. It wasn’t until this very summer, when I started watching the gripping and eye-opening documentary series O.J.: Made In America on ESPN,  that I really began to understand the story behind the name. And boy, was it a story. The flashing fame, the charming sociopath, the gruesome murder — these are the elements that you would expect to find in a fiction thriller story, not in real-life situations. When O.J.’s notorious memoir If I Did It was mentioned in the documentary series, I knew I had to read it — regardless of the fact that it was written by a killer.

Quick(ish) Background:

Orenthal James Simpson had built himself a life that many would only dream of. Born in 1947 in the projects of San Francisco, O.J. worked his way to fame by becoming a well-loved college football star at USC and a record-setting, legendary NFL running back. Soon enough, his name was making national headlines, and his posters were plastered across every teenage girls’ wall. Smooth-talking, handsome, and rich; O.J. naturally developed a life of glamor, flashing lights, screaming fans, and lots and lots of money. After his retirement from football, O.J.’s time was mostly spent hitting golf balls, making semi-successful movies, and sipping champagne with Donald Trump and the Kardashians at backyard parties. Simpson met his second wife, Nicole Brown, in 1977 while she was waitressing tables in a Hollywood nightclub. Brown and Simpson married in ’85 and soon had two kids, Sydney and Justin.

***

NICOLE: Could you get somebody over here now, to Gretna Green. He’s back. Please?
DISPATCHER: What does he look like?
NICOLE: He’s O.J Simpson. I think you know his record. Could you just send somebody over here?…
DISPATCHER: Wait a minute, we’re sending police. What is he doing? Is he threatening you?
NICOLE: He’s f*cking going nuts. (Crying again.)
DISPATCHER: Has he threatened you in any way or is he just harassing you?
NICOLE: You’re going to hear him in a minute. He’s about to come in again.
DISPATCHER: Okay, just stay on the line . . .
NICOLE: I don’t want to stay on the line. He’s going to beat the sh*t out of me. 

The police were sent to 325 Gretna Green more than eight times during the span of Nicole and O.J.’s marriage. “He’s going to kill me!” Nicole was reportedly seen repeatedly screaming while running from the house. Yet all the police ever did was talk to O.J. and give him warnings. “You never do anything about him. You talk to him, then leave.” (pg. 34) On January 1, 1989, O.J. beat Nicole so badly that she was hospitalized, and Simpson was finally arrested. He pleaded not guilty to charges of spousal abuse, regardless of the overwhelming evidence saying otherwise. While the prosecutor suggested he spend 30 days in jail and enter a year-long program for men who batter their wives, O.J ended up only being required to enter counseling with a psychiatrist of his choice. Nicole not only suffered physical abuse, she suffered mental abuse as well. Denise Brown (Nicole’s sister) reported that after Nicole’s pregnancy  with Justin, O.J. would refuse to touch her until she lost the weight, calling her a “fat pig.”

June 12, 1994, the bodies of Nicole Brown and restaurant waiter Ron Goldman were found outside Nicole’s condo.

*SPOILER ALERT*

He did it.

What is the plot of the book, or if it’s non-fiction, what topics are covered?

In his infamous memoir If I Did It,  O.J. Simpson, through ghostwriter Pablo Fenjves, desperately tries to clear his name of its (rightfully) bad reputation. To counter the media’s portrayal of him as a wife-beater, murderer, and sociopath, O.J. puts forth this short, “hypothetical” novel as somewhat of a plea for sympathy. According to If I Did It, O.J. is a perfectly reasonable, gentle, and kind man that was simply taken advantage of.

If I Did It begins with O.J. describing his early relationship with Nicole: How they met and dated, how Nicole pressured him into getting married, their “near storybook marriage,” their separation, their arguments… In those first 150 pages, O.J. does everything he can to make himself seem as though he was the perfect husband and father. The abuse charges? “She had that temper on her, as I said, and if something set her off she tended to come at me, fists and feet flying. Mostly I’d just try to get out of her way, but sometimes I had to hold her down till she got herself under control. ” (pg. 10)  Nicole was always the instigator in their arguments, and she always was the one who became physical. Sure, he lost his temper at times (like that one time he took a baseball bat to her car), but he was always provoked — he never intended to hurt anyone. He blames their marital problems on the “Two Nicoles.” One moment Nicole would be the sweet 18-year-old he “came to know and love,” and the next she would be this whiny and bipolar mess of a woman that he “didn’t sign up for.”

June 12, 1994, O.J. returns to his Brentwood mansion after a day of dance recitals, golf, and bickering with Nicole. He feels tired. Tired of Nicole’s trashy outfits and friends, tired of her constant attempts at getting back, and tired of the drama. He feels old; like a shadow of his previous self, his previous glory. When an old friend, Charlie comes by with reports that Nicole has been out and about “getting freaky” with strangers all week, something in O.J. snaps. That’s the mother of his children! She can’t act like that! How many times does he have to tell her to clean her act up? He grabs a knife, an old knit cap, and a pair of leather gloves. “‘Where we going, O.J.?’ Charlie repeated. ‘We’re going to scare the sh*t out that girl,’ I said.” (pg. 103) Then everything goes blank… And when O.J. flickers back to reality, he’s covered in blood with two bodies at his feet.

Describe a character in the book. Would you like to meet them? Why or why not?

Nicole Brown was only 18 years old when she met the dazzling and slick NFL running back at “The Daisy,” a celebrity A-list nightclub at which she waitressed. She was young and impressionable, easily swooned by O.J.’s kind demeanor and flirtatious banter. Although O.J. was still married to his high school sweetheart, Marguirette, they began secretly dating. Soon after O.J. and Marguirette divorced, O.J. and Nicole were married. But when Nicole said the words “I Do,” she had no idea what she was signing up for.

I can’t help but wonder what might have happened if Nicole hadn’t met O.J. that night; what could have been. Did she have dreams? Goals? “‘I’m tired of everyone seeing me as O.J. Simpson’s wife. I’m tired of living in your shadow.'” (-Nicole, pg. 77) People know Nicole as the celebrity wife who lived every day of her life as a battered woman. But she was also a loving mother, a daughter, a sister, and a friend… Very few people really knew her. Her sisters describe her as fun, messy, and giving. During her marriage to O.J., she devoted her life to her kids as a very hands-on mother. When she was asked how much she loved her kids, she responded with, “More than I love my own life.”

I would love to just talk to Nicole, maybe get a glimpse at what she was like behind the flashing cameras.

What is your opinion of the book? Would you recommend it? Why or why not?

I picked If I Did It because I wanted to get a different perspective on the case. Perhaps I was giving O.J. an undeserved chance to tell his side of the story. But If I Did It left me with no answers: no clarity, no resolution, no emotion. His writing felt calculated, rehearsed, and purposefully opaque. Everything in the novel was structured to make O.J. seem as though he was the victim in every situation. Everything was Nicole’s doing. It was Nicole who pushed him into getting married. It was Nicole who got physical in the fights. It was Nicole who admitted to cheating on him. It was Nicole who seduced him into getting back together. And — in the end — it was Nicole who was responsible for her own death.

For me, getting a glimpse into a killer’s mind is both fascinating and disturbing in equal measure. While I was reading his writing,  I started to realize that O.J. was so caught up in his lies and his stories that he started to believe them himself. “I can no longer tell fact from fiction.” (pg. 1) So in a sick, twisted way, I did end up getting a different perspective to the story — a madman’s perspective to the story.  Because of it’s somewhat sickening and disturbing narrative, I really don’t feel like If I Did It is a good book for everyone. However, if you are interested in the O.J. Simpson case like me, I recommend checking this book out. BUT, keep in mind that If I Did It is by no means a non-fiction. It is not a valid source of information on the topic.

How is this book similar to any other book, film, or article you have read or seen? What connections and comparisons can you make?

I can comfortably say that If I Did It is very unique in terms of writing style and subject matter. However, it does remind me of this 1950 Japanese film my dad was telling me about called Rashomon. Rashomon is mostly known for its plot, which involves four characters providing the viewer with alternate, self-serving, and contradictory versions of the same crime. This is much like O.J.’s “hypothetical” recollections in If I Did It, which contradict the evidence and the accounts of others. In addition to this, O.J. and the four main characters in Rashomon all seem to honestly believe that the stories that they are telling are accurate accounts of what happened.

However, while O.J.’s misinformed recollection of his crime and the events preceding it seem to be either a result of a mental disorder or a desperate attempt at a cover up, each character in Rashomon had no ulterior motives. They simply misunderstood the situation at hand. Their contradicting interpretations of the crime was a result of the “Rashomon Effect.” (Yes, it’s named after the film.) When these four very different people try tried to understand the complex and ambiguous situation at hand, they naturally came up with different conclusions.

What do you think the main theme or idea of this book is? What was the author trying to tell the world with this book?

As I said before, I feel like O.J. decided to write If I Did It to somehow clear his name, somehow convince the public that if he had killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, he had just motives. He claims that he’s presenting the world with the real story. He claims that the things he knows, the things he believes, are things that we can’t even imagine. “Because the story you know, or think you know—that’s not the story. Not even close. This is one story the whole world got wrong.”