"Well," I mumbled, "it wouldn't be very professional."
"Are you kidding me!?" She was angry. "After all the things you told me? How I had nothing to be ashamed of, how it wasn't my fault, how the world needed to learn from my story so that the cycles of violence would stop? How are you any different?"
I had to concede that I wasn't any different and, as I walked out of the prison, an opening chapter began composing itself in my head.
JB: Wow! What a story! Before this book was written, you gave some dramatic presentations that delved into your childhood. How did that come about and wasn't it incredibly hard to do?
JS: Yes. In 2009, I was contacted by Josie Lehrer, the founder and director of the Men's Story Project, who asked me to be involved in her innovative theatrical production designed to challenge misconceptions of masculinity. I agreed and took to the stage with a spoken word piece about what it meant to become a man after a childhood of abuse, balancing the desire to overcome helplessness with the fear of becoming a homicidal vigilante. It was an emotionally raw experience for me, but the positive response I received was overwhelming. Survivors of domestic violence told me my words were helping them heal, and a number of men struggling with violence said I'd given them the courage to stop hitting the ones they loved.
In 2011, Crime After Crime, the documentary film about our odyssey to free Deborah, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film included a number of emotional scenes that made me uncomfortable, including one with me talking about my mother and childhood abuse. But, once again, the response was overwhelmingly positive. The film chalked up award after award, and I was sucked up into a vortex of endless film festivals, theatrical openings, and the television debut on the Oprah Winfrey Network. At each event, I spoke about my childhood experiences and each time I became more comfortable doing it.
As the film frenzy wound down, invitations to speak continued to flow in, and I criss-crossed the country telling my story, raising awareness about domestic violence and championing legislation to help prevent it. I woke up in New York City one day in 2012, realizing that what had been my most reluctant secret was now my defining characteristic. In Los Angeles, a community activist told me I had become the male face of the domestic violence movement. In Chicago, the wife of a rabbi said I was the Jewish voice for domestic violence awareness. I don't know that I am that face or that voice but, with the writing of this book, I have convinced myself that what I told Deborah is true: If you are brave enough to tell your story, people will get inspired and help stop the cycle of violence.
book cover by
Hyperion/Hachette Book Group
JB: In Crime After Crime, you recount a time when you overheard your mother and stepfather in the midst of a fight and the fear and powerlessness you experienced. Many kids in that environment go on to repeat the pattern of abuse, either as perpetrators or the abused themselves. Were you worried that you might somehow channel your stepfather's abusive behavior and inflict it on your wife and children?
JS: Thankfully, no. I carried with me a lot of anger for years after we escaped from my stepfather, but it was focussed on wanting vengeance against him, and bullies like him, not at people physically weaker than I. Had we been with him longer, I think he would have defined for me what it meant to be a man, but I was fortunate to finish coming of age without him. He came to define for me everything that a man shouldn't be.
JB: You needed to talk with your mother at great length to remember and understand events that took place when you were pretty young. What was that like?
JS: On the one hand, she was delighted. What Jewish mother doesn't want to be treated by her son to lunch every Sunday for a year so that he can interview her about her life? But, on the other hand, I was asking her to bare her most intimate secrets for all the public to see and preparing to splash her every parenting decision across the pages of a book. This was, of course, awkward and uncomfortable for both of us at times as we trod back through dark memories, most of which we'd never discussed before. But something about the passage of time and the formal interview process kept our emotions under control and gave us both a healthy detachment where it was needed. In many ways, it was the cheapest and most effective form of therapy for us, and I highly recommend that every grown child interview his or her parents. It was so illuminating and healing to finally understand the context and circumstances around so many fragmentary memories.
young Safran
by historic photo courtesy of the author
JB: I bet. So, the process of writing your book, difficult as it was, ended up being a gift in many ways - for you, your mom, your ultimate readers. Let's go back to the Peagler case. Earlier, you said, "When I took the case, I naively thought that obtaining Deborah's release would be easy." We haven't talked about that at all. What can you tell us about why it was not the slam dunk you expected?
JS: In 1996, the California Supreme Court recognized a "battered woman's defense" for the first time. In 2002, the Legislature finally acted on the glaring problem that scores of women were serving life in prison for standing up to their batterers based on pre-1996 convictions. The new law allowed women like Deborah to finally tell their stories of abuse. Since the Legislature had acted so decisively and because all she essentially had to do was tell her story, I thought it would be an easy case. It wasn't.
Initially, that was because it took her a long time to trust me and my team enough to reveal all of the horrible details she had kept secret all those years. Later, we ran into aggressive opposition from LA District Attorney Steve Cooley who, unlike most every other prosecutor in California, essentially took the position that he wasn't going to comply with the new legislation. It took many years of struggle but we finally had him and his entire office of 1,000 attorneys recused for disqualifying conflicts of interest and for "circling the wagons" to protect their professional reputations in light of the significant prosecutorial misconduct we brought to light. While we had the satisfaction of exposing the prosecutors' misdeeds, it was largely a delay game on their parts, punishing our client by forcing her to spend additional years in unlawful incarceration.
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