Book Review: No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder
In February, Australians were left reeling at the unthinkable horror of the murder-suicide of Hannah Clarke and her three children at the hands of her ex-husband, Rowan Baxter. Then, a second wave of collective outrage hit, as many media outlets bent over backwards to avoid squarely placing Baxter as the perpetrator of the crime. Passively phrased headlines describing the family dying in a “car fire tragedy” or “horrific incident” framed the event as if it were an unstoppable, faultless accident, and many took to social media to grieve not only for Clarke and her children, but our continuing inability to frankly discuss domestic violence.
It is in the wake of this discourse that Rachel Louise Snyder’s No Visible Bruises arrives in Australia. Snyder is an American journalist and writing professor with extensive experience reporting on violence against women in developing countries. In her newest book, she presents a frank exploration of domestic violence (or “intimate partner terrorism”, as she sometimes terms it) in which common misconceptions are thoroughly pored over and deconstructed. No Visible Bruises is presented in three sections: examining the epidemic of domestic violence through the eyes of victims, perpetrators, and finally, those on the front lines of advocacy and judicial reform.
Snyder begins with the case study of Michelle Monson Mosure. Michelle had lived under the extreme control of her husband Rocky for years, before he killed her, their two children, and then himself in 2001. At first glance, Snyder’s portrait of Michelle’s story is laborious in its detail, delving into the marriages of both Michelle’s and Rocky’s parents, their childhoods, and hours of home videos. But as the tragedy unfolds, Snyder’s point becomes clear: this is not an isolated examination of a murder, but of all the convoluted circumstances foreshadowing it. The small details of Michelle’s life are heartbreaking and important, because they expose all the opportunities where systemic intervention could have saved her.
Snyder repeatedly decimates any misconception of a clear division between physical harm and other forms of abuse and control. Attending prison support groups and conducting in-depth interviews with perpetrators, she hears first-hand about the creeping behaviours that slowly erode victims’ safety and self-worth, isolating them from resources and trapping them with their abuser. The book shapes itself around the urgent message that domestic violence never looks as simple as we expect; as one of Rocky Mosure’s friends hauntingly confides in the author, “I knew he was controlling, but I never knew he was abusive.”
One of the book’s most valuable themes is its unflinching exploration of why victims of domestic violence recant accusations. Using real case studies, Snyder lays out the complex web of factors that often lead to recanting: financial dependence on the abuser, fear of retaliation, or a long-term escape plan that might appear from the outside as either weakness or an admission of lying. Leaving is a process, Snyder asserts, rather than an event. Michelle Monson Mosure, for example, had married her abuser in order to qualify for financial aid to study, in order to gain employment and financial independence, in order to eventually leave.
No Visible Bruises is, necessarily, a harrowing experience. The reader is walked through countless examples of not only direct abuse but of family misunderstanding, police minimising, systems failing. Snyder also endeavours to present hope. Gleaning the insights of allies and advocates, the book points towards the potential for us to repair cracks in the system, as long as we are willing to truly confront the reality of domestic violence, in all its complexity.
No Visible Bruises is published by Scribe Publishing.
Release Date: 7 Jan 2020