Why does the world need this book?
Sure, I think it’s entertaining, and after all, that was the original intention when I started working on it.
There’s more there, though, because most people figure men are somehow supposed to be able to “control” their wives/girlfriends, and if they don’t there’s something wrong with them. Problem is, for a variety of reasons – the biggest one being that the law no longer allows it – men hesitate to even defend themselves.
People in abusive relationships tend to engage in a lot of wishing and hoping. They wish he or she would change, and hope the problem goes away on its own. Most often it doesn’t, especially if the abuse is one of a group of symptoms of something else.
In Friends to the End, Clarisse is a drug-addicted woman who had been abused herself, which led to some serious psychological problems. Abuse is the way she runs her relationships, and it could be said it is the way she lives her life, as she abuses herself, not only with drugs, but through a constant struggle to maintain her beauty.
Keith comes from a large and mostly happy family. He was raised with his four brothers in a stable and very traditional home. His father runs a successful construction company, his mother was a stay-at-home mom, and both were committed to raising healthy kids.
More than anything, he is surprised when he marries Clarisse and finds her beauty is quite literally only skin deep. The way she treats him is so foreign to his experience, he has no way to deal with it at all, except to hope that one day she will change. He is athletic, and maybe the smartest of all the successful men in his family, but neither his brains nor his physical strength can help him.
Well after it was written, I realized that it is a story that accurately depicts what can happen when a man is abused by a woman. The reality of the situation is something quite different than most people would think it is, and for that reason alone it’s well worth a read.
Maybe someday there will be viable, practical help for people ensnared in violent relationships, and I hope that this book is a step in the right direction. That’s why I’m donating all the proceeds from Friends to the End to the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men & Women. DAHMW is the only agency with an apolitical focus and nationwide reach that provides the kind of help both men and women need.
