Author: Ann Harper Reed

ISBN: 9780615141947

Inspired by a true event, Ann Harper Reed with her Element of Blank sets out to take readers into the horrendous life of a battered woman, Sally, who was imprisoned in an environment of terror. Accurately and painfully describing common characteristics prevalent among battered women, Reed traces Sally’s life from her late teen years until she succumbs to a beating several years later by her abusive husband David leading to her death.

As mentioned in the book’s media release, every eighteen seconds, a woman in America is beaten by her husband or boyfriend. Women who are regularly terrorized begin to suffer from a state of “learned helplessness.” And not only do the victims suffer physical pain, but they also have to cope with their emotional and psychological pain. In addition, and as we see in Sally’s story, the victims blame themselves with the typical response being, “I provoked him, I was a bad wife, mother or housekeeper.”

The first section of Element of Blank is narrated in the first person by a teenage Sally. The opening chapter finds Sally in an argument with David which leads to their temporary break-up. We also learn that Sally is often the recipient of David’s verbal abuses wherein he would yell at her in front of his friends in his uncle’s garage because he thought she insulted him, or he would grab her to show he was angry. However, as she states, “it’s strange because it doesn’t have any place with the other things I’m talking about; like fighting was part of someone else’s relationship.” This is generally considered to be the first tension building stage where we witness verbal and sometimes minor physical abuse and where the victim attempts to pacify the abuser.  However, it is also the predictor of future abuse. Unfortunately, Sally seems to be in a situation where she receives little helpful support from her family and furthermore no one seems to be intervening in a positive way to point out to her that she should seek help.

Distraught and extremely saddened living without David, Sally feels helpless, completely blaming herself for their breakup. Moreover, Sally perceives her relationship as normal and as she comments, this is the way love works. She describes it as a game they play- a complicated dance where David makes her do one thing, and then she makes him do another, and so on, until they are back in their relationship.

The next stage of Sally’s life finds her running away with David upon her graduation from high school to live in a small town in New Mexico, Pie Town. Her parents were adamantly opposed to her decision, however, they could do very little to prevent her from making this terrible mistake and from what we gather it doesn’t appear that anyone was around to objectively discuss the ramifications of her actions.

Sally and David wind up living in a run down one room shack that David inherited from his deceased father. A far cry from the home Sally ran away located in Northridge California. It is in Pie Town where Sally lives in a kind of prison and endures continuous physical and psychological abuse at the hands of David. However, as she has a very low esteem of herself, she feels that it is always her fault. David on the other hand promises that the abuse will cease and he will change his ways.

As this stage in her life closes, Sally who is now pregnant returns home to her parents, after she discovers that David had been cheating on her. Once home she tries to lead a normal life and finds employment in an Orange Julius. Unfortunately, she miscarries and receives very little sympathy or support from her parents thus driving her back into the arms of David.

The second section of the book focuses on Sally and David’s ghastly lives as they become parents of two girls living in a small isolated valley town in California where the temperature in the summer can reach 116 degrees on a somewhat regular basis.

It is a town that is dedicated to talking about everyone behind their backs and speaks very little about Sally. As the narrative mentions, “that probably has more to do with her light and the despair of her life. Private ugliness like that is bound to make people uncomfortable.”

It is also here where Sally finds herself trapped in a cycle of abuse that she believes will never cease. David becomes her supervisor and master and although, she does make an attempt to seek help from co-workers, unfortunately due to either fear or misguidance, she abstains from pursuing concrete steps to rectify her unbearable circumstances.

Element of Blank could have easily been cliché-ridden and bloated however such is not the case, as Reed effectively paints a true life picture of how domestic violence is an appalling problem that we all must face-not only the people who are its victims. Moreover, her writing teems with vivid and sometimes graphic detail as she recreates a living, breathing and unbearable situation that at times is almost overwhelming, particularly where she describes the beatings Sally endured. One criticism I do have is that there is an underdevelopment of Sally’s relationship with her parents and also we know very little about David’s upbringing. It would have given us a better picture of their respective environments and how it may have been a factor in influencing their future behavior patterns.

The above review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN:  Norm is a Retired Title Attorney and now is the Editor & Publisher of Bookpleasures. Here are  Norm Goldman's Reviews        

To read Norm's Interview with Ann Harper Reed CLICK HERE

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