Confidential to Denise Brown

Correct me if I'm wrong, Denise, but I was under the impression you opposed the publication of If I Did It, the as-told-to book by O.J. Simpson about how he murdered your sister and her friend, in a conditional sort of way. Perhaps I had this notion because you've been on a media campaign urging people to boycott the book when it comes out next month.

So why, exactly, would you agree to go on The Oprah Winfrey Show to debate Goldman's family, who support the publication?

Denise, Oprah is where you go to talk about a book if you want people to buy it. Millions of copies of it. It doesn't matter what's said about the book on the show. Sales of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces actually surged after Oprah reamed him out on the air for making up most of it.

It's bad enough that Oprah, who normally puts on about as classy a show as the daytime talk genre permits, would stoop to featuring a cash-in book by a murderer (okay, acquitted murder suspect), with the fig leaf of "controversy" as her only excuse.

But she has ratings to think about. Your decision to go along with it is just inexplicable. Why would you do something that is guaranteed to boost the sales of a book you say you don't want anyone to buy?