L.J. (Linda) Kaufman is a woman with a mission: to elicit awareness of domestic violence — particularly psychological or emotional abuse. She has just published her first book, a novel, called “It’s Never a Secret,” which hopefully will start a dialogue and bring it to the forefront of people’s minds.
“Domestic abuse is a global epidemic. Education and open dialogue about the signs of abuse are powerful tools to combat the problem,” she shared in a telephone interview. “I chose the power of a fictional story to raise awareness and spotlight the complexities of domestic violence. The stigma surrounding this abuse must be removed.”
The book is a suspenseful, psychological mystery, as the main character slowly realizes the abuse she’s experiencing from her husband, with twists and turns along the way. Revenge becomes her motivation for recovery. Kaufman says she is writing a series about the main character, Erica Reinhardt, and the journey she must follow.
“I know people think of this psychological stuff as really dark,” Kaufman said. “It’s not just a dark book; it also has a lot of messages about hope and loyalty and friendship and how, when people go through difficult things and dark times, friends can step in and no matter how hard you push them away, true friendship will be there through the rocky course. So it’s not all dark and abusive. There is a message of hope and there is recovery and there is brightness to it also.”
Kaufman, who is an adjunct professor of law, political science and research and writing at several universities, says she has seen abuse firsthand through her students, friends and in society in general. It’s in the headlines when it happens to celebrities and athletes, but then it just fades away, she said.
“It’s such a horrendous problem worldwide. I kind of wanted to give it a unique perspective so that people could understand why victims do this [live with it].”
In “It’s Never a Secret,” after Erica and her husband’s daughter goes off to college, the husband’s behavior becomes more and more abusive. Erica doesn’t recognize that his narcissistic behavior has become worse; she thinks she has empty nest syndrome.
“She’s blaming it on [the belief that] she was this wonderful superstar mom and now ‘my daughter’s gone, I’m lost, I’m hopeless and feel off balance and something’s not right; it must be because I’m an empty nester.’ She’s attributing it to change of life events as opposed to the husband starting this slow, methodical destabilization of her,” Kaufman said.
Like Erica, many people are not even aware they are being abused. But Kaufman says there are visual vehicles and blogs that can help.
“We need to educate young people about what is appropriate and not appropriate behavior. There is a wonderful tool that’s been put out by the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence called ‘The Abuse Wheel,’ and everybody needs to go and take a look at it to see what different types of abuse are out there,” she said. It’s on Kaufman’s blog, which can be found on her website, www.itsneverasecret.com.
“Physical abuse is easy; you know, he hit me or she hit me, but there’s economic abuse, isolation, threats, using children against you, so you have to educate yourself.
“Part of it is being with friends and being in a community and saying, hey I see something you can’t see and perhaps bringing that awareness to the person or at least giving the person the right professional resources to deal with it,” she continued.
Given her background, it would seem more logical that Kaufman would have written a non-fiction book about abuse, but with fiction, the book will receive a wider audience. And Kaufman says she loves to write.
“I’ve always liked writing and I’ve always liked the creative part of writing. I just never really thought about making it a profession until later in life,” said the 55-year-old. “I have written short stories as a creative outlet most of my adult life. As my ideas for stories became more intertwined, I decided to weave them into a novel.”
She said it took several years to write the book and lots of creative writing classes with local writing clubs. She also shared her writing with professional writers and publishers.
Kaufman continues to practice some law and teaches at Avila University, University of Phoenix and Brown Mackey College. She lives in Overland Park with a rescue dog and attends Congregation Beth Shalom.
