WOW! Women on Writing Presents

Analyzing the Prescotts by Dawn Reno Langley

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Cotton Barnes, a Raleigh, NC, therapist, leveled by a client’s recent suicide, is struggling to resume her practice when she begins working with the Prescotts, a family fractured when the father comes out as transgender and begins transitioning. They relate their stories in their chosen voices, each family member’s narrative in a different format. Journals, social media, and other nontraditional narratives challenge Dr. Barnes’ therapeutic skills. While each member of the Prescotts dodge land mines behind the closed doors of her therapy office, the Raleigh, North Carolina area is rocked by a series of LGBTQ+ hate crimes. As Cotton finds herself stalking the family, worried that she might not be able to “save them,” her husband slips away, and Cotton is forced to make a decision that will determine whether she saves her own marriage or the Prescotts.

4 out of 5 fairies

This was an interesting, multi-faceted tale, with boundaries tested and crossed, and major upheavals in the lives of all the characters. I thought Dawn did a great job with the descriptions, but at times it felt kind of like an info dump when many of the characters were described almost at once. The story itself is compelling, very much driven by the characters. Cotton is an interesting character, and crosses the boundaries that are meant to exist between therapist and client with a kind of desperation, that speaks to her own trauma regarding the loss of a previous client. Her need to save the Prescotts is what really drew me in, and made me want to see not only how far she would go, but if she would succeed. I appreciate how different each member of the Prescott family is, they’re not cookie cutter by any means. If you enjoy psychological fiction crossed with literary fiction, then you should absolutely grab this!

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Dawn Reno Langley writes extensively for newspapers and magazines, has published more than 30 books (nonfiction, children’s books, and novels such as The Mourning Parade (Amberjack, 2017)), dozens of award-winning short stories, essays, and poems in journals such as Missouri Review, Hunger Mountain and Superstition Review, as well as hundreds of articles, theater reviews, and blogs. A Fulbright scholar and TedX speaker with an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies (concentrations in gender studies and creativity) from The Union Institute and University, she lives on the North Carolina coast. She offers writing retreats for other women and teaches for Southern New Hampshire University’s MFA program. Her latest book, You Are Divine: A Search for the Goddess in All of Us (Llewellyn) was released nationally and internationally in January 2022.ADD AUTHOR BIO

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