Black & Blue [Paperback]

Anna Quindlen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004

Fran Benedetto's husband beats her. So badly that she takes her son and runs away. Starting afresh in Florida under assumed names, Fran and Robert slowly rebuild their lives - until an accident at a fairground puts Fran into the public eye. Now, she must face up to her worst fear: that her husband will come after her. That he will never let her go.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Oprah Book Club® Selection, April 1998: "The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old," begins Fran Benedetto, the broken heroine of Anna Quindlen's Black and Blue. With one sweeping sentence, the door to an abused and tortured world is swung wide open and the psyche of a crushed and tattered self-image exposed. "Frannie, Frannie, Fran"--as Bobby Benedetto liked to call her before smashing her into kitchen appliances--was a young, energetic nursing student when she met her husband-to-be at a local Brooklyn bar. She was instantly captivated by his dark, brooding looks and magnetic personality, but her fascination soon solidified into a marital prison sentence of incessant abuse and the destruction of her own identity. After an especially horrific beating and rape, Fran realizes that the next attack could be the last. Fearing her son would be left alone with Bobby, she escapes one morning with her child. Fran's salvation comes in the form of Patty Bancroft and Co., a relocation agency for abused women that touts better service than the witness protection program. Armed only with a phone number, a few hundred dollars, and the help of several anonymous volunteers, Fran begins a new life. The agency relocates her to Florida, where she becomes Beth Crenshaw, a recently divorced home-care assistant from Delaware. Fran and her son adapt, meeting challenges with unexpected resilience and resolve until their past returns to haunt them. Quindlen renders the intricacies of spousal abuse with eerie accuracy, taking the reader deep within the realm of dysfunctional human ties. However, her vivid descriptions of abuse, emotional disintegration, and acute loneliness at times numb the reader with their realism. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA?This powerfully written story grips readers from the very first page. Fran and Bobby are crazy about one another from the moment they first meet, but his violent nature reveals itself even before they are married. Later, the "accidents" become more and more frequent and harder to hide: a broken collarbone, a split lip, a black eye. Finally, Fran escapes the abusive marriage, but by then she is damaged both inside and out. Assisted by a group that aids battered women, she flees with her 10-year-old son, Robert, who knows the truth but is reluctant to believe that the father who loves him so much could beat his mother so badly. Fran begins a new life with a new identity, but she lives in fear, knowing that Bobby won't rest until he finds them. Also, Robert longs for his father. Love between parent and child, coming to grips with the difference between passion and love, the importance of honesty in relationships, and self-knowledge as an essential part of healing?YAs can learn much about these and other themes in this novel about a shattered family and a strong woman determined to rebuild her life.?Molly Connally, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Random House (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099271834
• ISBN-13: 978-0099271833
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (486 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,689,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anna Quindlen is the author of three bestselling novels, Object Lessons, One True Thing and Black and Blue, and three non-fiction books, Living Out Loud, Thinking Out Loud and A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Her New York Times column 'Public and Private' won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. She is currently a columnist for Newsweek and lives with her husband and children in New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anna Quindlen's Best!, December 28, 2002

By 

Deborah Di Gioia "Dynamic Diva" (Middle Village, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black and Blue: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club) (Mass Market Paperback)

Anna Quindlen is one of my Favorite Authors and I have to say that Black and Blue has to be her at her finest. This was a book I was not able to put down at all. The characters are very realistic and you get a true understanding of all the emotions that they are feeling.

Fran Benedetto, a nurse who lives in NYC and seems to be happily married to her husband Bobby but she is a victim of Domestic Violence. The book deals more with Fran trying to escape her situation by going underground and assuming a new identity with her son Robert but its extremely hard to run away from a police officer. I was able to feel the suspense on every page wondering if or when her husband would catch up to her.

Anna Quindlen does an excellent job describing each and every emotion that Fran must have been feeling and this book gave me a new understanding of Spousal Abuse. This book is a real pageturner and it is one I would highly recommend and I would also highly recommend One True Thing also written by Ms. Quindlen.

37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can run, but can you hide?, April 18, 2000

By 

allan bachman (austin, tx) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black and Blue: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club) (Mass Market Paperback)

[Warning: a review below by "Drea248" unwittingly divulges a crucial element in the story line. Though a positive review, if you plan on reading this book, avoid the review.]

Anna Quindlan's latest work of fiction "Black and Blue" has the potential to do what few so called "women's books" are able to accomplish, have an intrinsic appeal which serves both genders. This is a story with the ability to be accessible on many levels and that is one of its strengths.

This is a book about women, about children, about men, about the building up and breaking down of relationships, about strength and weakness, about truth, about secrets, about courage, and about trust. It is enlightening, entertaining, and exciting; once started it will be difficult to put down. This is not an easy book to read or forget.

The issues raised, some resolved some not, remind us of the frailties and shortcomings we experience in our own lives. Hopefully the main topic is one with which many are personally unfamiliar. The description of the effort involved to achieve escape velocity from the gravitational pull of an old life is simultaneously interesting and frightening. But can you really escape?

This is the focal point of the story. The day-to-day events of the principal characters as they establish their new lives is beautifully and touchingly developed in every way, you almost forget how the main characters arrived where they are. Present experiences are cleverly woven with past memories throughout the narrative. However, this is a story that also has all of the underlying tension and menace of a good suspense novel, neither of which are ever very far from the surface.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Found Truth, August 20, 2000

By 

Ralph A. Kellogg (Omaha, NE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black and Blue: A Novel (Hardcover)

I read this book about a year ago, and was deeply tocuhed by the story Quindlen told. I am son of a battered woman and while never witness to the attacks my father inflicted on my mother, this book allowed me to expereince her pain. The book afforded me the opportunity to find the truth behind what it means to be abused, to have one's dignity and self respect stripped from one's being day by day hit by hit verbal barb by verbal barb. The thing that I found most compelling about Quindlen's novel is that she did not conclude the story with a "pretty bow on the box". While it is true that brusies and scars heal, victims of domestic abuse never truly recover from being abused, as the psychological scars stay with them their entire lives. I applaud this book for its honesty, and I found Quindlen's character developemnt of Fran and the exploration of her internal motivations to be very compelling. This is an excellent book for readers who want to know about the impact domestic violence has its victims and the ripple effects the experience of being abused has on victims lives.