When Battered Women Kill

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 1 MAR 1987

Browne is a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire's Family Violence Research Center. Her book is the culmination of six years devoted to in-depth interviewing of 250 brutalized wives, including 42 whose despair drove them to kill their husbands. The author's professional objectivity does not lessen the dramatic impact of the many accounts she includes of women repeatedly beaten by their spouses. More than 1.5 million women seek medical treatment each year because of assault by a male partner, but the few who kill to escape this torture are judged harshly and sentenced to prison. This is an important book that should force public action to help victims and victimizersboth of whom are equally unable to help themselves. Prentice Hall Book Club main selection.