No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know about Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

WINNER OF THE HILLMAN PRIZE FOR BOOK JOURNALISM, THE HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD, AND THE LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARD * A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST * LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST * ABA SILVER GAVEL AWARD FINALIST * KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2019 BY: Esquire, Amazon, Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, BookRiot, Economist, New York Times Staff Critics

"A seminal and breathtaking account of why home is the most dangerous place to be a woman . . . A tour de force." --Eve Ensler

Terrifying, courageous reportage from our internal war zone. --Andrew Solomon

Extraordinary. --New York Times,"Editors' Choice"

"Gut-wrenching, required reading." --Esquire

Compulsively readable . . . It will save lives. --Washington Post

"Essential, devastating reading." --Cheryl Strayed, New York Times Book Review

An award-winning journalist's intimate investigation of the true scope of domestic violence, revealing how the roots of America's most pressing social crises are buried in abuse that happens behind closed doors.

We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it a "global epidemic." In America, domestic violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, and yet it remains locked in silence, even as its tendrils reach unseen into so many of our most pressing national issues, from our economy to our education system, from mass shootings to mass incarceration to #MeToo. We still have not taken the true measure of this problem.

In No Visible Bruises, journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don't know we're seeing. She frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country 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 shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.

Author: Rachel Louise Snyder
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 05/07/2019
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.30w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781635570977


Award: Kirkus Prize - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 12/01/2018 pg. 51
Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2019 pg. 77
Booklist 03/15/2019 pg. 29
Publishers Weekly 04/15/2019
Library Journal 05/01/2019 pg. 112
Shelf Awareness 05/07/2019
Choice 01/01/2020

About the Author
Rachel Louise Snyder's work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Atlantic, and elsewhere. The recipient of an Overseas Press Award for her work on This American Life, she is the author of Fugitive Denim and the novel What We've Lost is Nothing. No Visible Bruises received the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award. An associate professor at American University, Snyder lives in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter at @RLSWrites