Curiosity + Technique = Analyzing the Prescotts by Dawn Reno Langley

Because Analyzing the Prescotts is set in the therapist’s office, the multiple points of view had to be distinct so that readers could recognize each family member. While the Prescotts shared their stories differently, each became part of the jigsaw puzzle that is the family.

Writing the novel, I learned that when you write from the first-person point of view, you not only show how the person feels about themselves and their predicament, but also what they think about others. Using point of view, I drew tough characters like Gray, the mom, who’s transphobic in the worst way. As the antagonist, she’s the reason the Prescotts splinter. Her children – Janis, Cherylynn, and Marcus – struggle to understand what’s happening with their parents and how to manage the changes in their own lives. Janis, the oldest, begins taking care of her younger siblings as Gray disappears into the background. Cherylynn, the middle child, tries to maintain her normal activities and her relationship with her father.

Marcus, the youngest, sees his world turned upside down as the kids at school bully him relentlessly. By placing the story in Dr. Barnes’ therapy office, I could show the tough decisions they must make and the ways they deal with their issues.
The two adults in the story who should be helping these children heal (their parents) are both preoccupied with their own relationship thus Cotton takes on the responsibility of worrying about them, and she becomes obsessed with each family member’s safety. That obsession shows cracks in her own identity veneer.ç

One of the many lessons I learned from writing this novel is that I needed to close my eyes and listen to the characters rather than to impose the narrative on them. Once I got into the space of truly hearing them, they took my breath away, and they stole the story.

As a writer, I need to understand the human psyche as much as a therapist does, but at least I don’t need to treat the people I create. I’ll leave that up to the real-life therapists. Right now, all I need to do is to give my readers a window into understanding the people who populate my books, and hopefully, to care about the characters. Sharing them through first-person point of view narrative in Analyzing the Prescotts felt like the right way to do that.

Though curiosity spawned this story and point of view shaped it, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the vital role research played in it. To create believable characters like psychiatrist Dr. Barnes and Hailey Prescott, the transgender father, I delved into what often felt like a black hole of information. I read dozens of treatises on narrative therapy, more than thirty memoirs written by transgender authors, and scoured books on gender theory. When all that research was complete, I asked friends, students, and other writers to read the novel as sensitivity readers. Though I am a strong ally of the LBGTQ+ community, I am not a member and did not want to offend, so I felt it necessary to ask for readers to give me feedback before I sent the novel out.

The process of writing Analyzing the Prescotts was a long one (almost ten years from beginning to publication), but my curiosity about the Prescotts and their struggle never abated. In fact, I often think that there’s more to tell about the family and their experiences. Perhaps that curiosity will become an itch I’ll have to scratch sometime in the near future, but for now, the novel continues to entice readers who might be curious about the transgender experience—and I love talking to anyone who wants to know more.

ANALYZING THE PRESCOTTS

The heart-wrenching tale of a family in crisis and the therapist who makes the tough decision to save herself.

Every member of the Prescott family struggles with identity issues when the father, Hailey Prescott, leaves the family to live life as a woman, sending them all tumbling into emotions so violent they threaten to tear the family fabric to shreds. When Dr. Cotton Barnes, a happily married psychologist from Raleigh, North Carolina, signs on to treat the family, she is challenged to the edges of her own fragile boundaries as cracks in the veneer of the Prescotts’ lives become craters.

The family members relate their stories in their chosen voices, each narrative in a different format. Marcus, the youngest, speaks to Cotton through his avatars; Gray, the mother, distances herself by referring to herself in the third person; the oldest child, Janis-a self-avowed loner-uses a defunct social media app; while the middle child, Cheryl, tries to keep everyone personally happy in person; and Hailey, the novelist father, hides behind her journals.

The Prescotts take turns breaking down and breaking through a roller coaster of emotions that mirrors what’s happening in the Raleigh area: a series of LGBTQ+ hate crimes rocks the community to its core. Telling herself she must save them, Cotton stalks the family, but when Hailey Prescott becomes the latest victim of brutality, Cotton is forced to make a decision that will determine whether she saves her own marriage or the Prescotts. Or herself.

Analyzing the Prescotts is the latest from Dawn Reno Langley, a novelist who Foreword Reviews says writes with “authority and fine craftsmanship.”