No Visible Bruises

NEW AND UPDATED — A NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST, AND ESQUIRE BOOK OF THE YEAR.

Love, desire, intimacy — we all know what these are meant to look like. But what happens when they descend into violence?

Award-winning journalist Rachel Louise Snyder once believed all the common misconceptions about domestic violence: that it happens to an unlucky few; that it’s a matter of poor choices; that if things are dire enough, victims will leave. Her perception changed when she began talking to the victims and perpetrators whose stories she tells in this book.

Fearlessly reporting from the front lines of what the WHO has deemed a ‘global epidemic’, Snyder interviews men who have murdered their families, women who have nearly been murdered, and a range of professionals in advocacy and law enforcement, painting a vivid and nuanced picture of what happens when relationships go badly wrong.

The problem is on the rise: an average of 137 women are killed by familial violence worldwide every day. Two women die at the hands of their partners each week in the UK. In the US, domestic homicides have increased by 32 per cent since 2017. And in South Africa, a woman is now killed every three hours. No Visible Bruises tells the intimate stories behind these headlines, and lays out the society-wide changes that are urgently needed to stop domestic violence in its tracks.