Book Review: Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton with Erin Torneo

In July 1984, North Carolina college student Jennifer Thompson endured a brutal sexual assault. What happened that night shattered not only the victim's life, but the lives of several people and their families. Mistaken identity, DNA, the power of memory, and race all figure into Picking Cotton, the incredible account of Thompson's mistakenly identifying Ronald Cotton as her attacker, and his 11-year fight to clear his name.

A joint memoir (written with Erin Torneo), the book simply lets Thompson and Cotton narrate their own stories. Part one belongs to Thompson, who describes her attack in excruciating detail. While being raped at knifepoint, Thompson willed herself to memorize her attacker's facial features. Eventually she managed to escape, later confidently telling police that she would be able to identify the intruder in a lineup. When she viewed the suspects, she immediately recognized Ronald Cotton, a local resident, as the perpetrator. Burning with rage, she testified against him at trial, then attempted to move on with her life. She reveals the disintegration of her relationship with her then-boyfriend, her family's complex reaction to her rape, and her brief experimentation with drugs. Eventually she married and had three children, and began to heal.

Part two offers Cotton's perspective, which is the most wrenching part of Picking Cotton. In a conversational tone, Cotton explains his poor background and youthful indiscretions, then his horror at realizing that he was going to jail for a crime he did not commit. His description of jail life is shocking, detailing that while he tried to keep a low profile, he still constantly looked over his shoulder, ready to defend himself against attacks from fellow inmates. Incredibly, he met Thompson's real attacker — fellow prisoner Bobby Poole, a criminal with a history of sexual assault. Cotton noticed his strong resemblance to Poole, and immediately contacted his lawyer, asking for a new trial. After a new trial was granted on appeal, Cotton amazingly was convicted again, this time for two rapes — Thompson's and another woman's, who was attacked the same night.

Article Author: Kit O'Toole

Kit O'Toole is a lifelong music enthusiast who maintains a music blog, Listen to the Band. In addition, she is the internet columnist and a contributing editor for Beatlefan magazine. She also holds an Ed.D. in Instructional Technology.

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