Amanda Knox Living in "Limbo": New Book About Her Life Behind Bars in Italy
ROME (CBS/AP) Amanda Knox, the American student convicted in Italy of murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher, is quoted as saying in a new book that she'd rather not be famous for the slaying, and that her days in jail feel like "limbo" - suspended between her old life and her hopes for the future.
Knox talks about her aspirations to marry and adopt children, and her interests in writing and studying languages in a series of jailhouse conversations with Italian lawmaker Rocco Girlanda, who visited her over the past year.
The conversations are the basis for his book, "Take Me With You - Talks with Amanda Knox in Prison," which comes out Tuesday, Oct. 19, about a month before Knox's appeal begins Nov. 24.
"You live a little bit between the memory of life the way it was before, your hopes for tomorrow -- and trying as hard as you can not to feel like you're in here," Knox tells Girlada.
He has chosen to focus on Knox's personality and upbringing in Seattle.
"I wanted to know Amanda, I wasn't interested in Amanda Knox," Girlanda told the AP. He insisted the girl he had come to know was different from the "sex, drugs and rock and roll" image depicted by many in the Italian press.
Girlanda says he kept diaries of the some 20 Italian-language conversations he has had with Knox since her conviction. Girlanda, who heads a foundation that promotes ties between Italy and the United States, said he started meeting with Knox in a bid to help offset the diplomatic fallout the explosive case had created.
Knox tells Girlada about the publicity she's had to endure.
"Everybody tells me, 'You're famous.' And I answer, 'I'm not Angelina Jolie!'" she is quoted as saying. "How ugly to be famous for this. I would have preferred to be (famous) for something I built, I achieved."
However, one topic that remains virtually unmentioned - Meredith Kercher.
The 23-year-old Knox was convicted last December of murder and sexual assault in Kercher's death in 2007. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison by a court in Perugia, in central Italy.
The attorney for the Kercher family said he had not read the book but understood the author was trying to portray Knox as a profound, smart girl who as such could not possibly have been guilty.
Knox's family has refused to endorse certain publications chronicling their daughter's life; however, Curt Knox, Amanda's father, hopes this book will help change public opinion about his daughter in some quarters.
"We have been trying throughout this whole process to portray Amanda the way we know her and now there's somebody actually from Italy who's gotten to spend time with her," Curt Knox told "Good Morning America" Tuesday. "We're hoping this will change some minds."