Customer Reviews

His Name Is Ron: Our Search for Justice

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book brought into focus the young man that was "lost" in all the media attention on OJ and Nichole. Poor Nichole was doomed and would have been killed regardless but Ron was in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid for it with his life. Until this book came along, I didn't know much about Ron Goldman and was glad to finally learn about who he was. It also gave an entirely different perspective on the trial.

HIS NAME IS RON in my opinion is the best of all the O.J SIMPSON books that I have read. It deals with what the GOLDMAN'S went through in this case. The book I feel really shows what violent crime can do to a victim's family and then because of the defendent's fame to have that anguish played out everyday in the pubilc eye I don't know how THE GOLDMAN FAMILY did it. But as I read I felt an even greater admiration for the family and sympathy for thier loss. I would recommend this book for anyone it is moving and disturbing as well as inspiring you don't have to have a relative who was a victim of violent crime to understand it either. So all in all read HIS NAME IS RON you won't soon forget it.

I found this book to be a wondeful tribute to the "other" victim in the Simpson trial. It gave Ron Goldman a face, a personality and most important a life which he no longer has. His family shared their experiences of what few of us could only imagine to be a terrible and overwhelming time. The courage they showed in going to the courtroom each day, the fact their family was able to hold together through this terrible tragedy is a real boost to the human spirit. Through their words, they made Ron Goldman a real person in our eyes. The book is written with a lot of class and heartbreak. The fact that Ron and his family are the focus of this book and everything they went through was for Ron is inspiration in itself. The Goldman's wanted to make the world aware of what kind of person Ron was like and they did a magnificent job in doing that

Fred Goldman has always impressed me. Here is a guy who was forced to deal with his tremendous grief in a very involuntarily public fashion, who totally kept his act together while expressing as much rage as possible without comprising his credibility. There was no rush to forgiveness of his son's killer, as we too often see as a symptom of this country's desire to conflate unconditional forgiveness with "enlightenment." Did most rational people secretly hope Fred would shoot OJ outside the courtroom or run him over with his car in the streets of Brentwood? Of course. However, the Goldman family didn't need the additional difficulty of Fred's arrest, and their case didn't need anything to detract from the monumental evidence supporting OJ's commission of the murders. Sadly, it was Johnnie Cochran and his "Scheme Team" that derailed the locomotive of justice, through at least race-mongering and conspiracy theory.

"His Name Is Ron" allows the Goldmans to vent some of their anger, and recounts the life and death of their son and subsequent trials with great detail, dignity, and a surprisingly amount of objectivity. They didn't need the money for the book: its writing arose to counter "works" from the dark side, including from the killer himself, and from a desire to set the record straight about their son. The Goldmans were never baited by the black-white race card played by the defense team; they, like so many of us, hated OJ because of what he did, not who he was. Expressions of the Goldmans' understandable erosion of faith in the legal system are balanced with a continued recognition that, defects notwithstanding, we still need fair legal representation for criminals and to at least attempt to conduct fair trials. Certain Goldman family members even remain opposed to the death penalty, despite the fact that OJ made many nation-wide change their mind in favor of capital punishment.

For anyone who wasn't familiar with all the finer points of the Trial/Blunder of the Century, this book is gives a clear and informed account, and is particularly eye-opening with respect to the pain endured by the Goldman family. As the litany of horrors described grew, so did my admiration for Fred, Kim, Patti, etc., and for their ability to not suffer nervous breakdowns. The non-exhaustive list of insult added to the Goldmans' injury includes watching OJ laugh and joke with his oily lawyers, taunt the victims' families, and recount his golf game during the trials; witnessing a juror throw a black power salute to the criminal defense team, definitively acknowledging the trial boiled down to nothing more than race; being scolded by courtroom officials for drinking bottled water during the trial, and risking losing courtroom seats that weren't filled every day; lectures about courtroom decorum from the trashy family of Nicole Brown; an interloping mother of the deceased, who had no involvement with the family until she saw dollar signs from Ron's death; and death threats made against the family and its legal counsel.

Sadly, I recently heard that the Goldmans have yet to see any money from OJ- not because they need the money, but because every dollar gained represents one lost by the killer. I also believe that Safe Streets, the victims-rights organization that Fred Goldman become a part of, is no more. This country needs a lot more advocacy for real victims than for criminals, and people like Fred Goldman help us make gains to that end, turning pain into progress. One final wish is for the Goldmans to realize their dreams of OJ's premature (though by now, already too late) death sometime soon.

With all the hoopla surrounding the so-called "Trial Of The Century," when the bogus issues of corruption, prejudice, and tainted evidence were introduced into this trial by shameless defense attorneys whose cheek and gall seemed endless, the N and R words were mentioned frequently.

They were not, however, "Nicole" and "Ron." They were "Nigger" and "Race." Racism was turned into the real crime, while the two victims in this case, Nicole and Ron, were treated as throwaway non persons who had simply evaporated, not been butchered like pigs to the slaughter.

At least Nicole's murder made her "famous." Ron, however, was dismissively referred to as her "friend," the second, forgotten victim who had also died, and his family, in this heartbreaking book which will bring tears to the eyes of an icicle, speaks out for him, because he can no longer speak. They speak out for other murder victims, who also can no longer speak. And they speak out for the countless millions of violent crime victims worldwide, because they too, cannot speak. Up until now, their silence has been deafening, while we are inundated with daily images of not only the killer Simpson, but other killers and criminals, being informed by a sadly misguided media and judicial system, that they are the true "victims" in this society. But, as any person who passionately believes it is time equally balance the rights of victims against the rights of offenders will attest, these people are not victims. They are criminals, undeserving of sympathy.

In penning this exhaustive memoir of the most stressful and harrowing period of their lives, the Goldmans have allowed us into their hearts and shared with us their grief, their anger, their outrage in a way that is rivetingly honest, raw, emotional, and heartbreaking. Most of all, they have shared Ron with us, transforming him from a seemingly abstract figure portrayed on television screens and newspaper covers to a person of flesh and blood, a person who could have been anybody's son, anybody's brother, and anybody's friend. There, but for the grace of God, go I.

Ron, I wish I'd known you. I can tell just by looking at your smile what a beautiful human being you were. But you are not a "were" to your family and friends or to the people who never knew you but have grown to care about you. You still "are" and your presence is felt, stronger than ever.

But this book is not only for you, Ron. It is also for the millions of families who believe that tragedies like yours are so far removed from their lives that they can never happen to them. For the best parts of our lives can be found in the hearts of those who loved us.

I first ran across this book in one of my favorite hangouts, the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Des Moines, IA, on February 23, 1997. You may reasonably ask: "How do you know this for sure?" Well, the fact that the date was the first year anniversary of my own mother's murder kind of helped fix the date in my mind. I'd been sitting around my apartment until I felt that if I stayed there any longer, the walls were going to close in on me, so I headed out and ended up at a bookstore. Other people go to churches when they're upset---for me, it's a bookstore or a library. This book was on the shelves, and I took it down, curled up in one of the comfy chairs that B+N provides, and started to see what the Goldman family had to say. I soon found myself so choked up that I had to put the book down---and I giggled through the whole ending of the movie _Love Story._ The Goldmans remind us that every murder has victims other than the dead person---the murder hits at the families and friends of the dead person, as though the murderer had aimed at them as well. This book should be on the shelves of all victims-rights advocates.

This book is my favorite of all time. I came here to purchase the paperback, but I have owned the hard cover since its printing.

If you have any soul at all, this book will not let you forget you read it, and it will touch your heart - deeply. Within the first few pages, you are either sobbing, very angry at our so-called "justice" system, or both.

This book gives Ron Goldman his life back... in a sense. He died trying to save someone else, and he was swept under the circus tent - hidden for too long.

This book is beautiful.

This book is amazing. From the very start you are drawn into the horror-filled lives of Ron Goldman's family. Whether you believe O.J's innocence or not, it's hard not to empathize with the family. Each paragraph is a work of art, causing you to feel each emotion so well described in the book. You can't help but wonder how it would be if your child was killed and the person who in you believe killed them is walking free, doing everything your child would be unable to do. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to read a great book about an extraordinary boy and the pain that follows his death.

This was a wonderful book that I found hard to put down. Even though I didn't want to put it down, sometimes I found it difficult to read because I was experiencing the same feelings of helplessness that the victim's family felt. This book really made me feel like I was a part of the trial of the century. It took me inside the courthouse and opened my eyes to the whole legal process.

When I read the messages on the answering machine, I could just feel the uncertainty his friends had about the news of a Ron Goldman being killed. Ron's friends called and were HOPING that it was NOT their RON. But it was SO SAD, it was THEIR RON. Ron had many people who cared! It tells me how much he was liked. I couln't help but FEEL for Goldmans and friends. Petrocelli and his team of excellent lawyers should have been the proscecutors. Not only did Goldmans experience horrific pain, but they were thrown into that fiasco trial and that ludicrouss media circus plus more all which was truly caused by THE MURDERER!