44 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, Erin TorneoPicking Cotton: Our Memoir Of Injustice And Redemption
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Jennifer Thompson-Cannino
Content warning: The guide contains discussions of rape, sexual assault, and racism that appear in the source text.
When she was 22, a strange man broke into Jennifer's apartment and raped her. Eleven days later, she picked Ronald Cotton out of a lineup and named him as her attacker. The aftermath of the rape led to the dissolution of her long-term relationship with her boyfriend, Paul. Until Ronald was convicted—receiving a life sentence—Jennifer lived in a state of fear, anxiety, and shame. She turned briefly to drugs in order to numb her feelings.
After Ronald was imprisoned, Jennifer returned to a normal life, married a man named Vinny, and had triplets. When DNA testing proved that she identified the wrong man, Jennifer was afraid all over again. She worried that Ronald wanted revenge on her. Eventually, she felt compelled to meet him, and they became friends.
Her character arc is one of working through Victimization, Shame, and Guilt. Knowing she is not to blame for her rape and receiving forgiveness from Ronald helps her achieve a measure of well-being. Through Ronald’s friendship and forgiveness, Jennifer forgives herself for her mistake and can finally move forward from her traumatic experience.
Ronald Cotton
Ronald Cotton was thrown into a nightmare when he was accused of Jennifer’s rape. When he learned that he was a suspect, he went to the police station to clear his name. As a Black man in the South, he quickly saw that the detectives had already decided he was guilty. Ronald received a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. When he was incarcerated, he initially struggled with feelings of rage. He decided to kill another inmate—the man who actually assaulted Jennifer--but his father told him, “If you take this man’s life, you ain’t never coming home. You’ll belong in here” (114). Ronald knew that he was right and decided that he was not going to become a criminal, even in prison.
When he learned that a DNA test might be the key to exonerating him, after 11 years in prison, Ronald knew that his patience—and his decision to exercise control over his rage—paid off. He is a man of faith and believes that God has helped him. When he was released, he struggled to reintegrate himself into society. He married a woman named Robbin, got a job with the lab that tested his DNA, and eventually became an unlikely friend and partner in activism to Jennifer.
