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Domestic Abuse in America

 If you're a woman in an abusive relationship, one thing you shouldn't rely on is "the system."


We Americans learn this again and again. We learned it with Gaby Petito, a young person who very clearly indicated that she was in distress, and was then ignored (and later murdered). We learned it with Nicole Brown, who went to the police, who said, literally, "O.J. is going to kill me, and he is going to get away with it." (O.J. said to friends of Nicole, "If I catch her with another man, I will kill her.") Police incompetence seems to be memorialized in our language, our English language. "No visible bruises" is a phrase that lets cops off the hook--who decides what is "visible"? It's clearly not the initial caller, the woman in distress.

Karen Palmer had a tough situation. Her husband, a professional thief, was verbally abusive. Also, he confided in her; he casually described having once killed a man. The husband--Gil--then produced a gun and threatened to commit suicide. He laughed and added that the gun was not loaded. When Karen removed it from Gil's hands, it fired into the side of the bathroom sink.

As relations deteriorated, Gil became angrier. One day, he abducted Karen's essentially preverbal daughter. The little girl disappeared for over a week.

End of the backstory. Karen makes a decision. With her boyfriend, she gathers her two kids, and she runs. She stages an abduction of her own. Fake IDs, a new life in a new part of the country. Burner phones. New names. Gil never sees his children again.

Is this acceptable? Would you behave differently, if you had Karen's chutzpah and you lived with her circumstances?

Living with guilt, Karen isn't entirely well. She has periods of intense depression. She can't keep herself from "tracking" Gil--especially as she gains distance from her marriage. (Gil deteriorates in shocking ways. This could be confirmation that it was necessary for Karen to abduct the children. Or it could be confirmation that, when someone abducts your children, you will deteriorate. It may be a chicken-or-egg situation.)

What is especially admirable about Palmer's book ("She's Under Here") is that she seems consistently honest. She isn't trying to win your approval (so, oddy enough, it becomes easy to sympathize with her).

This is a haunting memoir.
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