Podcasts have elbowed their way into novels — and onto the best-seller list — with a zeal that’s becoming … familiar. In the past few years, Rebecca Makkai, Denise Mina, Lisa Jewell and Holly Jackson have all written fiction that turns up the volume (not sorry) on episodic storytelling, usually having to do with true crime. OK, we get it: Nancy Drew had her blue notebook, trusty convertible and loyal sidekicks, Bess and George. Modern sleuths have pop filters, sound booths and rapid-fire ads for BetterHelp and SimpliSafe.
Thankfully, Amy Tintera adds a fresh note to the mix in “Listen for the Lie,” which shifts the focus from podcaster to accused. In the court of public opinion, Lucy Chase was long ago convicted of murdering her best friend, Savannah “Savvy” Harper, in Plumpton, Texas (not a real place, but “all the locals know each other and attend the same church,” so you get the idea).
The problem is — and here’s another plot device that’s getting a little bit long in the tooth — Lucy doesn’t remember what happened the night Savvy died. She can’t recall the wedding they both attended, nor can she explain why she was found the next morning, wandering down a local road, still in her blue dress.
Enter Ben Owens, who trains his mic on her story, determined to crack the case. His interest all but guarantees Lucy’s life sentence by a jury of listeners.
“I was obsessed with Serial, like everyone else,” Tintera said in a phone interview. “I enjoy true crime podcasts but I also have a lot of conflicted feelings about them.” She’d read up on Amanda Knox, who spent four years in jail in Italy for the murder of her friend and roommate, Meredith Kercher, before being acquitted. This tragedy started to unfold in 2007, well before the podcast boom, but still in the era of trial by magazine cover and talk show.
“I had been following her throughout the years and watching how her life has been shaped by public opinion,” Tintera said of Knox. What would it be like to be the subject of such intense scrutiny? While she devoured true crime podcasts, she had a nagging feeling of guilt: “I thought this would be an interesting concept to explore. And maybe the host of the podcast I created would have some of those conflicted emotions about the case he was investigating.”
Tintera added, “I also wanted to have a character who only had memories of loving her friend, while everyone around her was saying, ‘No, you didn’t. You secretly hated her.’”
