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On Domestic Violence

For a long time, I tried to write about "No Visible Bruises," which had really shaken me -- and I struggled. The subject matter--the deaths of several women at the hands of their partners--is obviously really hard to talk about.

Also, it's not earth-shaking to say--about an already-praised book--that "this is a really great book."

Having noted that, I think I can point out a few things:

*Rachel Louise Snyder is really skilled with small, chilling moments. A man murders his wife. He leaves behind several hours of family footage. The survivors claim they can't find anything odd in this footage. Snyder watches. At one point, the wife is in her underwear, and she asks not to be filmed. "Please stop," she says. "Please stop." The husband keeps filming. Eventually, the wife stops making her request. Why did this bother me? Snyder asks. Wasn't this just some bit of tomfoolery? Then Snyder has an epiphany: She asked him to stop, and he didn't. She became silent. This is how people are stripped of their power.

*Snyder turns the lens on herself at one point. She is enraged at a guard at a correctional facility. "Really? You need my memo pad? You think I'm going to kill someone with my memo pad?" Intoxicated by her anger, Snyder goes on and on and on. If you've ever dealt with a piggish TWA official, you know what Snyder is describing. But later, Snyder reflects, and she says something a bit shocking: "I thought about how someone had murdered a guard at this prison several years ago. I thought about another response I could have tried with the prison guard: I was wrong and I'm sorry."

*One great feature of Snyder's brassiness is her willingness to point out a conspiracy of silence. We don't talk about domestic violence--we don't read about domestic violence--because it just seems icky. Just leave that to the man and the woman. That's a private matter; let the couple work it out. "You know how hysterical a lady can get." But when we don't look at ugly things, the ugliness gets worse. Exactly how much bravery does it take to name things that aren't otherwise named? If you don't address the problem, then you are complicit. This is true of everyone.

Recommended reading.
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