No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Part 1, Chapter 3

Part 1, Chapters 4-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-8

Part 1, Chapters 9-10

Part 2, Chapters 11-13

Part 2, Chapters 14-16

Part 2, Chapters 17-18

Part 3, Chapters 19-21

Part 3, Chapters 22-24

Part 3, Chapter 25

Author’s Note-Afterword

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 2, Chapters 17-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “The Beginning”

Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary: “In the Season of Unmitigated Discovery”

After Donte Lewis’s reincarceration, Snyder sees him at Canaan prison in Pennsylvania. Lewis describes Canaan as a prison divided by geography: The men from New York, for instance, stick together against the prisoners from California. There are several notorious criminals at Canaan. Lewis is in a drug program in addition to ManAlive, but he says that the men in Canaan are less receptive to the emotional sharing he experienced in the ManAlive group with Jimmy Espinoza. Snyder asks Lewis about his time interning at Community Works with Jimmy Espinoza. Lewis tells her it was a time of discovery.

As Snyder leaves the prison, a guard confiscates the notes she has written during her three-hour meeting with Lewis. Snyder engages in a sarcasm-laden exchange with him before recognizing the entitlement she feels by virtue of being white and educated. Reflecting on the incident, Snyder says that what bothers her about it is “I know better. I wish I’d done exactly the opposite in the moment. I wish, when that supervisor came out with my notebook in his pocket and told me it was contraband, I wish I’d said this to him: ‘You’re right. I’m really sorry’” (198).

Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary: “Those Who Break”

After going missing, Espinoza began using drugs again and then voluntarily entered a yearlong rehab facility. When he meets with Snyder again, Espinoza is back at Community Works, sober and healthy, leading ManAlive at San Bruno prison as well as a narcotics anonymous group. He often speaks to churches and civic groups about the temptation to return to his former life. He tells Snyder that he resists four particular pathways to trouble: denial, minimization, blame, and collusion.

Espinoza teaches the men in his group about the social pressure on boys to be tough and says that he was taught that women exist to serve men, who are under no obligation to appreciate the women’s efforts. He reminds the men that they would not want someone to treat their daughters the way the men have treated their partners. Snyder takes issue with this approach, asking, “[M]ust we always see ourselves, our own stories, to make someone else’s mean something? Can’t we just believe that all people should be safe and not just those who resemble our own mothers and daughters? Is relatability necessary for empathy?” (205)

Espinoza was always uncomfortable with the idea of Snyder speaking to his ex-partner and his mother, and when Snyder questions why Espinoza gets to make that decision instead of the women themselves, Espinoza quits speaking to her. When Snyder asks Espinoza’s ex whether she believes that Espinoza is truly reformed, she responds, “I think they can become ninety percent nonviolent. But there’s a small part of them that you can never fix” (206).

Before their rift, Espinoza showed Snyder messages from women across the country praising him for the way he turned his life around. Snyder writes, “It makes me a little uncomfortable. It might even piss me off a little. Men like Jimmy are not remarkable. They’re not noteworthy. They’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing—which is not beating up women” (206). David Adams agrees, noting that this type of adoration only feeds the narcissism at the root of so many abusive behaviors.

Snyder then turns to the third significant moment in Espinoza’s life: Someone he knew molested his daughter when she was 12 years old. Espinoza had to choose whether to kill the man or not: “But really, he says, he realized that wasn’t his decision at all. The decision was actually ‘Do I make it about me and go kill this motherfucker? Or do I make it about my daughter, and be there for her?’” (207). Espinoza shares this realization with the ManAlive group, telling the men that he wants to reform them so there will be more safe women in the world.

Part 2, Chapters 17-18 Analysis

In the account of her visit to see Donte Lewis in prison and her argument with the guard on the way out, Snyder acknowledges her own privilege compared to the overworked guards or incarcerated inmates. This admission is one of several moments where Snyder weighs in with her own feelings and opinions. In this case, Snyder’s unflattering self-assessment actually reinforces the reader’s sense that she is a reliable narrator who can accurately interpret even her own biases and weak spots. This echoes the introspection and remorse asked of the men in the intervention groups.

Snyder poses a question in Chapter 17 about whether relatability is necessary for empathy. This is a loaded question for the reader, who might have begun reading the book with the idea that domestic violence is something that happens only to other people—especially people of other classes or races. Although Snyder has shown that domestic violence transcends such considerations, her discomfort with what Espinoza asks the men to consider—whether they would want someone treating their daughter the way they have treated their own partners—suggests that we should not have to view a problem as something that happens to people “like us” in order to empathize with it. This is in a sense the premise of all of Part 2, which presents us with probably the greatest challenge where empathy is concerned, asking us to understand and even pity people whose actions may strike us not just as unrelatable but abhorrent.

Snyder’s account of the rift between herself and Espinoza is revealing, as is the fact that Espinoza’s ex does not believe it is possible for someone like him to fully reform. While Espinoza claims he has truly changed his life, Snyder hints that he may still hold on to his past misogyny and desire for authority over women. The fact that Espinoza regularly receives acclaim from women who praise his turn-around (and feed his narcissism) suggests that women need to stop applauding nonviolence as something special rather than treating it as the most basic expectation.

Part 2 ends with the revelation that Espinoza’s own daughter was molested, just as he had been. Espinoza had to decide whether to feed his own desire for revenge by killing the molester or to be the father his daughter needed by staying present in her life. He chose the latter. This anecdote stands in contrast to what Snyder has just revealed about Espinoza trying to control whom Snyder interviewed. Snyder has left room for serious doubts about whether Espinoza, or any other man, can truly be rehabilitated. This uncertainty serves as a jumping off point for Part 3, in which Snyder will look more deeply at the work that is being done to rehabilitate violent domestic abusers.