Every month, Scoop hosts our 60-second book club, where we invite you to take a quick peek inside a buzzed-about new book and let us know what you think. This month’s pick: Waiting to Be Heard by Amanda Knox.

Do you remember where you were on November 5, 2007? Amanda Knox will never be able to forget: It was her last day of freedom before spending four years in an Italian jail, accused of murdering her British roommate. Granted, “freedom” is a generous term here; Knox spent the day being interrogated by Italian police, who hit her in the head and kept insisting that she knew who the murderer was. They also insisted that they had evidence that incriminated her.

It’s just one of the harrowing experiences that Knox finally opens up about in her new book, Waiting to Be Heard, which recounts the time between when she arrived in Italy to study abroad and when she finally returned home after being freed from prison. Here, Knox details one of the many interrogations she underwent before her arrest:

People were shouting at me. “Maybe you just don’t remember what happened. Try to think. Try to think. Who did you meet? Who did you meet? You need to help us. Tell us!”

A cop boomed, “You’re going to go to prison for thirty years if you don’t help us.”

The threat hung in the air. I was feeling smaller and smaller, more and more helpless. It was the middle of the night. I was terrified, and I couldn’t understand what was happening. I thought they had to be pressuring me for a reason. They had to be telling me the truth. … I didn’t trust my own mind anymore. I believed the police. I could no longer distinguish what was real from what wasn’t. I had a moment when I thought I was remembering.

The silver-haired police officer took both of my hands in his. He said, “I really want to help you. I want to save you, but you need to tell me who the murderer is. You need to tell me. You know who the murderer is. You know who killed Meredith.”

In that instant, I snapped.

I truly thought I remembered having met somebody. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I didn’t understand that I was about to implicate the wrong person. I didn’t understand what was at stake. I didn’t think I was making it up. My mind put together incoherent images. The image that came to me was Patrick’s face.

I gasped. I said his name. “Patrick—it’s Patrick.”

I started sobbing uncontrollably. They said, “Who’s Patrick? Where is he? Where is he?”

I said, “He’s my boss.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t know—at the basketball court.”

“Why did he kill her? Why did he kill her?”

I said, “I don’t know.”

“Did he have sex with Meredith? Did he go into the room with Meredith.”

“I don’t know, I guess so. I’m confused.”

They started treating me like someone who’d been taken advantage of. They told me they were helping me, that they were trying to get to the truth. “We’re trying to do our best for you.”

They were softer, but I was no longer sure of anything—of what was real, of what I feared, of what I imagined.

 

Knox goes on to explain how the investigators drafted a declaration written in Italian (which Knox wasn’t fluent in at the time) and asked her to sign it. “As soon as I signed it, they whooped and high-fived each other,” she says. Police arrested both Knox and her employer, Patrick Lumumba (whom Knox quickly said she never should have implicated), the next day.

Knox was eventually convicted of murder in 2009 and then acquitted of it 2011 due to insufficient evidence. The ordeal isn’t over, either: Recently, an Italian court actually overturned this decision—there’s no double-jeopardy in the country—and asked for a new trial, which will begin some time next year.

Are you curious to hear Knox’s side of the story? Or have you read the book already? Let us know what you think of Waiting to Be Heard—and Knox’s sometimes strange behavior—in the comments below.

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