Dear Neighbors,
The Scarsdale Public Library and the Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling Service's Safe Coalition invite you to participate in a Community Read.
We will be joined virtually by Rachel Louise Snyder to discuss her book, No Visible Bruises.
This program will run virtually through Zoom and can be viewed from home. Registration is required.
Copies of the book are available to borrow from the Scarsdale Public Library, and the book is available to purchase with a 10% discount at the Bronx River Bookstore in Scarsdale Village.
No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder
In works of “uncommon talent and confidence” (Masha Gessen, The New Yorker), author and investigative journalist Rachel Louise Snyder explores the causes and consequences of under-reported social crises. Her work demands that we see the reality of domestic violence, global consumerism, race and class prejudice, and other often overlooked aspects of our world.
Snyder’s latest book is No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, about which critic Parul Sehgal drew comparisons to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in its literary indelibility: “I read Snyder’s book as if possessed, stopping for nothing, feeling the pulse beat in my brain.” A compelling work of investigative journalism with the narrative force of a novel, No Visible Bruises reveals that one of America’s most urgent social problems takes place behind closed doors, and that the most dangerous place for a woman, statistically, is her own home. Whether we call it domestic violence, private violence, or intimate terrorism, it has a far more pervasive impact on our society than many realize. Between 2000 and 2006, about 3,200 Americans were killed in combat. In that time, more than three times as many women were killed by their partners.
“No Visible Bruises is a seminal and breathtaking account of why home is the most dangerous place to be a woman. Through brilliant insights and myth-busting research, compelling storytelling, and a passionate focus on truth-telling, Rachel Louise Snyder places domestic violence exactly where it should be, smack in the center of everything. A tour de force.”
—V (formerly Eve Ensler), author of the Vagina Monologues
No Visible Bruises begins with the murder of Michelle Monson Mosure and her two children by her husband, a longtime domestic abuser. Weaving together external accounts of the Mosure story, Snyder lays bare the ambivalence of society’s response to domestic violence—what the World Health Organization has called “a global health problem of epidemic proportions.” Snyder frames her account around key stories that explode the common myths: that if things were bad enough victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that providing shelter is an adequate response; and perhaps most damaging, and that violence in the home is unrelated to other types of violence. In fact, more than half of the mass shootings in America include acts of domestic violence, according to a 2017 study released by Everytown for Gun Safety.
No Visible Bruises invites a sobering meditation on the far reaching social consequences of intimate violence, as well as the policies, laws, and cultural narratives that help abusers escape responsibility. Drawing on the stories of survivors, perpetrators, law enforcement officers, and victim advocates, Snyder illuminates the intersections between domestic violence and poverty, homelessness, and addiction, underscoring the fact that none of these patterns emerges in a vacuum. She cites Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted, where he shows that domestic violence can lead directly to eviction, further motivating victims not to report their abusers.
Text excerpted from www.lyceumagency.com
For more on Rachel Louise Snyder, please visit her on Facebook, Twitter, and at globalgrit.com.
