An incisive and thought-provoking collection of essays on a defining American experience, curated by the Nobel-prize winning author of Beloved.

Toni Morrison contributes an introduction and brings together thirteen essays, all written especially for this book, by distinguished academics - black and white, male and female - on one of the grimmest and most revealing moments of American history: the O J Simpson case.

Together these keen analyses of a defining American moment cast a chilling gaze on the script and spectacle of the insidious tensions that rend American society, even as they ponder the proper historical, cultural, political, legal, psychological, and linguistic ramifications of the affair.