Remember last week, when we were trying to identify the guest stars in the Goldman-approved edition of If I Did It? And I guessed Mark Fuhrman, because he was “a best-selling writer with a unique insight into the crime, the trial, and the book,” but the Goldmans’ agent told me I was wrong? And then I said, “Who’s left? Dominick Dunne? Pablo Fenjves? Raffles Van Exel?” Turns out I should have stopped at two names, because those are the guys.
Literary agent Sharlene Martin confirms that Fenjves (near right), “the man who sat eyeball to eyeball with O.J. Simpson” in order to ghostwrite the manuscript of If I Did It, will be discussing those encounters in the book’s prologue. Ordinarily, a ghostwriter would be contractually prohibited from writing about that role, but when the Goldmans acquired the rights to the book, Martin realized they could waive that obligation, and now Fenjves will describe what it was like discussing the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman with OJ, “what he said, what he didn’t say, and what he asked to be taken out of the final draft.”
Now, I had originally guessed Fuhrman because I thought he’d be more available than Dunne, but, Martin says, she always wanted Dunne once the idea of extra writers was approved. “First and foremost, he sat next to the Goldmans every day during the trial,” she said, and that friendship—as well as Dunne’s own personal persective on insufficient justice for murder victims—made him a natural fit for the project. “As a crime writer, journalist, and exquisite wordsmith,” she said, “I believed he would be the perfect palate cleanser after [Simpson’s version of events].” She hopes that the entire package, which also includes an introduction from the Goldmans, the book will “go down in history with In Cold Blood or Fatal Vision,” as “an extraordinarily unique presentation” that, because of the legal twists and turns, we’ll probably never see the likes of again.