Analyzing the Prescotts: A Novel

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."

Dawn Reno Langley's many books include novels, such as The Mourning Parade (Amberjack, 2017), as well as nonfiction books such as You Are Divine: A Search for the Goddess in All of Us (Llewellyn, 2022). Her published works include children's books, nonfiction books about art and antiques, hundreds of articles, theater reviews and blogs, dozens of award-winning short stories, essays, and poems in journals such as Hunger Mountain and Superstition Review. A Fulbright scholar and TedX speaker with an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the Union Institute and University, she lives in North Carolina with her scientist husband, where she teaches yoga and offers writing retreats.