What I’m Reading Now: Picking Cotton

I’d highly recommend Picking Cotton. The story is told in alternate narration between a woman, Jennifer Thompson, and her accused rapist, Ronald Cotton. Jennifer is a twenty-something-year-old college kid in the first chapter. She goes home to her apartment and falls asleep. Later that night, she’s awakened to the sight of a strange man in her bedroom. He holds a knife to her neck and rapes her. Later, she tricks him into letting her go into her kitchen, and she gets a good look at him in bright kitchen light, memorizing his face. Jennifer is lucky enough to run for the back door and take sanctuary at a neighbor’s house. Horrifically, the rapist rapes another woman nearby on that same night.

I won’t spoil the book for you, but I will say there’s a case of mistaken identity in it. I like the alternating narrative style in which the book is written. We also get to follow the story of Jennifer’s convicted rapist and learn what his life was like both before prison and after his conviction. If you’d like to learn more about Jennifer’s and Ronald’s stories, there’s an old 60 minutes interview with both of them. There are spoilers in the interviews, so don’t watch the interview until after reading the book.