Books that complement each other, Pt. 5: Two fictional takes on the criminal trial that held the world's attention
Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois
Wealthy American college girl goes to Italy as a Study Abroad student, ends up in a romantic triangle with her roommate and an Italian student, and the roommate is found murdered. College girl and Italian boyfriend are tried and convicted. Sounds like the plot of a thriller but, of course, truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and it’s the Amanda Knox “story.”
In Cartwheel, Jennifer duBois tracks the Knox case closely as she explores the characters of Lily Hayes, her roommate Katy Kellers, and the object of their affection, Sebastian LeCompte, the wealthy young man who lives next door to their host family. Moving the story from Italy to Buenos Aires, duBois perfectly captures the surreal nature of being caught up in another country’s legal system, particularly when one has been charged with a shocking murder. Lily is an intriguing, if not particularly likable, young woman and protagonist. Despite her generally good intentions, Lily experiences personal difficulties with her host parents, the Carrizos, who are unusually private; with Katy, of whom she is suspicious because of her all-American good looks and positive attitude; with her employer at Fuego restaurant and bar; and with her divorced parents, pretentious intellectuals whom she addresses as Andrew and Maureen.
The problem is that Lily is very smart but self-absorbed and naïve. She is the classic “fish out of water” in a foreign country. She speaks Spanish but still has trouble communicating effectively with many people. She and Katy present what appear to be opposite personas: everything is a struggle for Lily, while everything seems to go smoothly for Katy, and Lily cannot figure out why. Cartwheel moves back and forth in time to let us see Lily adapting to life in Argentina, developing a relationship with the reclusive eccentric, Sebastien, and struggling to fit in and thrive during her year studying abroad.
In the midst of this compelling nightmare of a story duBois has inserted some subtle commentary on the uninformed, inane, and occasionally unethical actions of the media and legal system that will seem very familiar to American readers. As with any tragedy, the reader notes the many ways in which it could have been prevented had one thing been different: an action not taken, words not said. And yet, like a Greek tragedy, the outcome seems inevitable.
Abroad by Katie Crouch
Irish college student Tabitha (Taz) Deacon transfers from England’s Nottingham University to a university in the old city of Grifonia, Italy (think Perugia in the Umbria region). Taz has chosen Grifonia instead of one of the larger cities because of its rich Etruscan history, with which she is fascinated. Soon after settling into a cozy rental just off the city center hosted by two local girls, Taz meets her American roommate. Claire is a free spirit, unpredictable and perhaps even unstable, but with a striking beauty and undeniable charisma that win over most people.
Taz is something of an introvert, but she longs to be part of something larger than herself, in both her academic and social lives. She wanders around town observing both the Grifonians and her fellow “study abroad” students and is intrigued by a trio of sophisticated rich girls from the U.K., one of whom, Jenny Cole, is a fellow student at Nottingham University. Abroad follows Taz’s experiences as she is admitted into this seductive triumvirate, develops a fragile relationship with Claire, attempts to pass her classes, and seeks out romantic experiences with Italian boys, who are mystifying yet irresistible. She is determined to crawl out of her Irish schoolgirl shell and live passionately while in Grifonia, and Jenny Cole offers her a chance to do just that.
Not surprisingly, Taz gets both more and less than she bargained for when she befriends Jenny, Anna, and Luka. And that is the core of Abroad’s steadily intensifying story. It’s based loosely on the Amanda Knox case of 2007, in which Knox and her Italian boyfriend were convicted of murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in what was presented by the press and prosecutors as a lurid love triangle gone wrong. Another Italian man with a long criminal record was convicted of the same crime in another trial.
Rather than write about the controversial investigation and prosecution of Knox, using multiple flashbacks (as Jennifer du Bois did in Cartwheel), Crouch presents a plausible version of events and motivations for the eventual murder. We get to know Taz intimately, while Claire remains a complex presence viewed through the eyes of Taz, but not a main character. In the Knox-Kercher case, the media’s reporting was so sensationalized that a fair trial was impossible. As Knox and her supporters have long maintained, she was largely misunderstood and mischaracterized by the public.