TELL US ABOUT YOUR BOOK.
Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures.
While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . . .
Except now Joni is tangled up in a crime eerily similar to that one fateful night in Greece. And when she asks Bess to come back to LA to support her, Bess has a decision to make.
Is it finally time to face up to what happened that night, exposing herself as the young woman she once was and maybe still is? And what if she doesn’t like what she finds?
WHAT COMPELLED YOU TO WRITE IT?
I wrote this book in the depths of lockdown in London after scrapping my second full attempt at another book. Unsurprisingly, I was feeling pretty low at the time. My mum had recently dropped off my teenage diaries, and as I started to
read to distract myself, I was surprised by the level of intensity in the pages —particularly when anything happened within my tight-knit friendship group. After finishing, I decided to write the book I’ve always wanted to write—one about friendship. Specifically, teenage friendship. The dark side as well as the intense love.
My friend Lola and I have been best friends since school, and we always talk about the herd mentality that can take over when you’re a teenager—this eat-or-be-eaten mentality. When you’re a teenager, you’re constantly trying to push the limits of everyone around you: Will they still love you if you do this? And what about this? Everything feels so intense and critical, particularly these friendships, and it was a time in life I’ve always wanted to explore.
In terms of the wrongly accused angle, I became incensed by the treatment of Jennifer Levin, the eighteen-year-old victim of the so-called preppy murderer, Robert Chambers, in the eighties. The media latched on to the idea that Levin was wild and promiscuous, suggesting that she was therefore somehow deserving of her fate. This is something we’ve seen repeated over and over again since then, but this story, the way that every part of Levin’s private life was publicly scrutinized after her death, set something alight inside me. I started thinking about how other women have been treated by the press, and how that attention and level of infamy would impact someone’s life going forward.
I think the thing that fascinates me most is that what happens to Bess and Joni could have happened to any of us if we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if your history, all your diaries, and (being 2008) your Facebook messages and albums were leaked to the public, how many of us wouldn’t have said or done things we were ashamed of? And what options are you left with, really, once every corner of your life has been exposed? In this book, we see two best friends who react very differently to the same trauma. Would you face it head-on, or would you hide yourself away for fear of everything being snatched away from you all over again?
WHAT DO YOU FEEL ARE THE MAIN THEMES AND ISSUES THAT ARE ADDRESSED IN BEFORE WE WERE INNOCENT ?
I think the book is, above all, about friendship —all the ways we test each other, and the different ways we show our love. It’s also very much a book about shame, and coming to terms with a lost version of yourself by stepping out of the shadow of your trauma.
WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE MAIN CHARACTERS?
I knew from the start that I wanted to tell the story of two very different women’s responses to the same life-shaping incident. This was a fascinating place to start from, as I was able to work backward—what type of person would hide themselves away after their life had been publicly ransacked, and what type of person would step into the spotlight, seemingly facing it full-on? From there, the characters of Bess and Joni evolved, and I was able to explore their choices and history through both the lens of this tragedy and their different upbringings. In the book, Bess views the three friends on a scale of Joni to Evangeline, with Bess falling somewhere in the middle, but the truth is much more complicated than that. As a teenager, Bess is at times observant, fiery and guarded, swinging between fierceness and fawning with those she cares most about in the hopes they don’t abandon her, while Joni comes across as tough and serrated, but on the inside she’s more vulnerable than any of them. Evangeline seems perfect, but she can also be entitled and envious, masking a loneliness from her privileged but loveless childhood. I loved writing about these three young (and later two grown) women and how they navigated their friendship and the power they held over one another.
1.
Bess and Joni are vilified by the international media after Evangeline’s death in 2008. Do you think the same thing would happen today?
2.
After Bess’s and Joni’s reputations are ripped to shreds, they’re expected to know how to navigate their new infamy. How successful are they each at coping with it? And what choices would you have made in their position?
3.
What do Bess, Joni, and Evangeline see in one another when they meet as teenagers? What were you looking for in your own best friends at that age?
4.
Bess still blames herself for what happened to Evangeline in Greece. Do you view her death as a senseless accident or an inevitable outcome of their collective frustration that summer?
5.
Why do you think Bess agrees to help Joni when she comes back to her in 2018? Why does Bess find her old friend so hard to resist?
6.
After Bess returns from Greece, her relationship with her family deteriorates. What could they have done differently to stop this from happening?
7.
Bess still fantasizes about her stolen future with Theo. What do you think he represents for her? And what do you think the future would have held for them if Evangeline hadn’t died that night?
8.
Toward the end of the book, Joni attributes her manipulative behavior to her past trauma. Do you accept this as a justifiable defense for how she acts toward Bess? Should our present transgressions be forgiven because of our past?
9.
At one point, Bess asserts that “trusting someone is a choice.” Do you believe this is true? And why do you think Joni finds it so hard to tell Bess the truth about Willa from the start?
10.
The book examines the thousands of choices we make every day— good and bad, infinitesimal and life-altering. Joni wants Bess to be fearless in her choices. Do you think Bess achieves this by the end of the book?