Rachel Louise Snyder Wins the 2020 Helen Bernstein Book Award For Excellence In Journalism

May 12, 2020 - The New York Public Library announced today that Rachel Louise Snyder is the winner of the 2020 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism for her evocative work No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us published by Bloomsbury Publishing. On Monday June 8 the NYPL will host a virtual talk with Snyder about her book. 

No Visible Bruises frames an urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths—that if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it. The paperback version of No Visible Bruises will be released in June.        

Snyder’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Atlantic, and elsewhere. The recipient of an Overseas Press Award for her work on This American Life, she is the author of Fugitive Denim and the novel What We’ve Lost is Nothing. No Visible Bruises received the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award. Currently Snyder is an associate professor at American University. 

“The Bernstein Book Award is a recognition for which I hold a profound gratitude nearly too expansive for words, especially now as we grapple with conditions unlike any most of us have ever lived through,” said Rachel Louise Snyder. “In this time, a book on domestic violence is perhaps more urgent than ever. Even as we progress socially, culturally, intellectually, domestic violence homicides rates have steadily risen, a trend that should be a call to action. There is no effective conversation about domestic violence that doesn’t include conversations about race, homelessness, mass incarceration and mass shootings, and so many of the most profound issues we face as a nation today. This award is personally gratifying, certainly, but more than that it is a recognition not simply that these problems exist, but that we are a nation made up of people with the courage to acknowledge and address them." 

The Bernstein Book Award is given to journalists with books published in the last year that bring clarity and public attention to important issues, events, or policies. Snyder was one of five finalists selected earlier this year by a Library committee, which received and read over 100 books submitted by publishers. The winner was then chosen by the Bernstein Selection Committee comprised of six professional journalists. The other finalists were:

• She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (Random House); 
• Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration by Emily Bazelon (Random House);
• A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century by Jason DeParle (Viking);
• The Outlaw Ocean: Journey’s Across the Last Untamed Frontier by Ian Urbina (Knopf). 

Winners of the award receive a $15,000 prize. Previous winners include journalists Dan Fagin, Ellen Schultz, Masha Gessen, Jane Mayer, and Shane Bauer, last year’s award winner for his book American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment.    

The Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism was established in 1987 through a gift from Joseph Frank Bernstein, in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein Fealy. The gift was in two parts and also endows the position of the Helen Bernstein Librarian for Periodicals & Journals. This position curates The New York Public Library’s internationally-renowned Periodicals Division, housing one of the largest collections of past and present newspapers, magazines, and journals from around the world. The position is currently held by Librarian Shannon Keller.

PRESS CONTACT: 

Bobby Sherwood, robertsherwood@nypl.org 

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