When Amanda Knox was exonerated following a homicide conviction and launched from an Italian jail 14 years in the past, she returned to Seattle with the appeals course of nonetheless ongoing, stuffed with uncertainty about what the remainder of her life would possibly appear to be. The concern was additional difficult by the truth that Italian courts, and one prosecutor specifically, continued to pursue her, refusing to consider her innocence in Meredith Kercher’s homicide. Only when she was dwelling did she notice that she had turn into, with out her data, considered one of America’s most recognizable faces.
In her new e-book, Free: My Search for Meaning, Knox tells the story of her traumatic 4 years in jail, and the friendships she struck up with fellow inmates and jail staff to get via it. She additionally writes about her makes an attempt to make a life on the opposite facet, as she continued to clear her title and have become a contract author, together with the story of how she met her now husband, novelist Christopher Robinson. Free weaves in insights from Amanda’s pursuits in Zen Buddhism, comedy, and nerdy popular culture, to present readers a extra holistic imaginative and prescient of her character and continues a challenge she and Robinson began on their podcast, Labyrinths, the place the pair interview artists, journalists, scientists, and comedians.
Knox additionally writes in regards to the expertise of grieving Kercher, her good friend and roommate, who was murdered of their shared Perugia residence in 2007, and her makes an attempt to persuade Dr. Giuliano Mignini, the prosecutor who tried her case in 2009, of her innocence. Knox and Mignini finally struck up a shifting correspondence, which continues to be ongoing, and Knox finally met him exterior of the courtroom.
Now the dad and mom of two younger kids, Knox and Robinson run their podcast and manufacturing firm from their dwelling on Washington’s Vashon Island. But earlier than the couple headed to New York City for Free’s launch, they traveled to Budapest to spend a while on the set of the upcoming Hulu scripted present Amanda, which they govt produced.
“I can’t say much, but it’s going to be really cool,” she stated of the present. “Everyone is really, really talented. They’re bringing their best work and such care to the project. It’s very moving.”
Vanity Fair: Your second e-book is so completely different out of your 2013 e-book, Waiting to Be Heard. You stated that was a narrative about what occurred to you, and this new one is about you. One of the funnier elements of the e-book occurs while you notice you missed 4 years of popular culture while you have been incarcerated.
Amanda Knox: Oh my gosh. I missed Obama! I missed Wall-E. I missed Justin Bieber.
But you additionally discovered that your case had been big information in America whilst you have been gone. You credit score Monica Lewinsky and Lorena Gallo—the members of what you name the “Sisterhood of Ill Repute”—with serving to you get via it, however how did you cope with basically being one of many first individuals to be “canceled” on-line?
It was being canceled, however I used to be additionally was a product. It was a product that was being offered, the product of the woman-hating slut. Right? Similar to Monica—how dare she have an affair? With nobody contemplating that she was only a younger woman who was stupidly in love. What did they assume was going to occur?
I hate how the media pits ladies towards one another, and that’s what was taking place in my very own case. This concept that right here’s this one archetype of girl and right here’s this different archetype of girl, and they’re at non secular battle with one another, and it led to intercourse and demise.
Even after your conviction was overturned, individuals struggled to acknowledge that they have been unsuitable about you.
Clearly it’s not private, as a result of no matter it’s, they’ve their very own bizarre little worldview and motivations occurring. But why did this story set off them and set off them to be so motivated and devoted? It’s a extremely good query for a psychologist—why do individuals get obsessed? I do assume that there’s something to the truth that from the very starting, I used to be each unrelatable and relatable, in the way in which that the Mona Lisa is fascinating as a result of individuals can’t fairly inform if she’s smiling or not or what she’s considering. I believe I used to be the Mona Lisa in that means.
There can also be a rom-com within the center, while you meet your husband. You fall in love by going to Burning Man. It’s cute!
It’s sort of unbearable in a stunning means. I like calling it a rom-com. I’m going to inform him that. He’s with our children proper now. The hardest factor in regards to the press gauntlet this week is saying goodbye to the youngsters. I’ve a three-year-old and a one-year-old, and so they’re each extremely connected. I’m their favourite individual on the planet. It’s so onerous. Every morning my daughter, our three-year-old, holds on to my arm and says, “Don’t leave.”