Before We Were Innocent

While The Complexities of Adolescent Female Friendships constitute a central focus of the novel, Ella Berman also explores True Crime and Media Distortion in contemporary culture. Although true crime programming has long been part of the American media landscape, its popularity has exploded within the last few decades, and the number of true crime films, television shows, and podcasts has increased exponentially. Thus, Before We Were Innocent explores the ways in which women are often vilified by the media in stories that feature questions of criminality. Two real-world cases have been mentioned repeatedly in the press surrounding this novel: that of Amanda Knox, a girl wrongfully convicted of murder while studying abroad in Italy, and that of Jennifer Levin, the victim of the so-called “Preppy Killer.” Many readers and reviewers have drawn connections between the treatment of Joni and Bess and the vilification of Amanda Knox on the part of the Italian press. Reviewers also observe that both Berman’s fictional characters and Amanda Knox served time in foreign prisons. Berman herself noted that although she set out to write a book about the complexities of female friendships in late adolescence, she was disturbed by the media misrepresentations of Jennifer Levin’s character and wanted to shed light on how the media often perpetuates distorted images of women.