Book excerpt: THE GORILLA AND THE FAIRY is an allegory, intended as an adult picture book. The author's hope is that this book be an awakening for adolescents as well as for the huge silent mass of women who are in or have recently come out of abusive relationships. In 1998, the author attended a Domestic Violence support group in an upper middle-class suburb of Washington state. In the first four months, three new groups were started in the immediate area. Every meeting the author attended on a weekly basis had at least one or two new members. Many of these women are in denial about their situations. After only months of being with their perpetrator, their view of reality becomes distorted. It is the author's hope that this lushly colored, illustrated story can help some of these women recognize the process of abuse enough to get the help they most desperately need.