Terrifying Love: Why Battered Women Kill and How Society Responds

Walker ( The Battered Woman ), professor of psychology at the University of Denver, focuses on women who kill husbands or lovers in self-defense or to protect their children. She attributes much domestic violence to an emotional numbness that develops when society views brutality as normal, even in intimate relations. A major portion of this important study details the author's efforts to gain recognition from all sectors of the judicial system that these violent acts responding to extreme situations are sane and justifiable--a defense that depends on the victim's ability to prove that she had ``a reasonable perception of imminent danger.'' (Oct.)