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

() Nothing is perfect. Not out justice system, and certainly not our memory. Our memory is especially unreliable in traumatic situations. This book illustrates this in a none-too-short story about a man named Ronald Cotton. He was wrongfully identified by a determined, eduring witness, and rape survivor, Jennifer Thompson.

The book switches from narrating both perspectives. Cotton spends 11 years incarcerated for a rape he never committed. Finally, DNA and another inmate's detailed confession clears him of the crime. Yet all that time, Jennifer Thompson was dead-sure it was Robert Cotton.

But she, Cotton, and the police department are soon educated by research that reveals current police practices can taint the mind of a witness. Thompson was guided to her conclusion, though it was also in line with her memory. (Ronald Cotton was often mistaken to be Bobby Poole, the real perpetrator, while in prison.) So technically, as it says somewhere in the book, they are all "victims of the same rapist." Thompson and Cotton eventually became close friends.

Even when we are completely certain of something, we can still be wrong. Our memories aren't static, though we like to think so. This is a non-fiction book authored by the main characters themselves. It's a good read.

But maybe I'm just growing a love for memoirs. I listened to this as an audio book.

"The way pipes burst when there's too much pressure - I couldn't allow that pressure to build up in me, because it'd snap my mind. I had to protect my mind, to get it in front of the time. [...] More waiting, carrying a big question mark over my head. if this was my life - if I was going to spend the rest of my days in a North Carolina prison - I had to figure out a way to live it." (pg. 144)
"Some of the nicest people you met in prison were sometimes the ones who had done the worst stuff. You never know who to believe. Some people told lies because they didn't want to accept what they had done. A couple of times I tried to tell people I didn't do it, but they usually just said, 'You had to, if you didn't do it, you wouldn't be here.'" (pg. 152)
"Put a man in a cage with beasts and throw away the key, and it's usually not very long before the man is a beast himself." (pg. 155)

My Lobotomy by Howard Dully

() "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." (pg. 1) A 'classic' line, though I personally have never heard it before this book. This guy, on the other hand, Howard Dully, had survived a lobotomy he was given at 12 years old. And he didn't become a vegetable, or a complete robot. So then his 'evil' stepmother, as she can somewhat be legitimately called in this case, sent him away to insane asylums and jail. He was labeled and became a victim of his 'role' and his operation most of his life. Then he decided to tell his story.

How many people do you know that have undergone lobotomies? I don't know any. The stats are scary, the procedure is scary, and how long it was allowed to go on: scary.

The author did his research thoroughly on everything he wrote about. His memory lapses, family, the area he's from, his doctor, and of course lobotomies themselves. He skillfully puts himself all on the table; first for the NPR audience. It's moving.

Dr. Freeman, Dully's and many other individuals' lobotomist, drove around in a "lobotomobile" where he would tour the country giving lobotomies from tools he made himself. Even an electroshock device that was said to be falling apart. There are many other odd, disturbing facts Dully notes about the mental health and juvenile justice system at that time. It's an eye-opening read. But I listened to it on audio book so I don't have as many great quotes that sample the writing as I usually do.

"He began doing lobotomies in his office. He stretched the patients out on a table, knocked them out using electroshock, punctured the skull using his Uline ice pick, [through the upper eye socket,] and swung the ice pick back and forth across their frontal lobes. He waited for the bleeding to stop, then sent the patient home, sometimes in a taxi cab." (pg. ?)