Black and Blue (Oprah's Book Club) - Softcover

Quindlen, Anna

3.89

82,436 ratings by Goodreads

9780385333139: Black and Blue (Oprah's Book Club)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385333137 ISBN 13: 9780385333139

Publisher: Delta, 2000

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With daring and compassion, Anna Quindlen weaves a forceful, harrowing portrait of a woman and a marriage, capturing the profound intricacies of love and rage, passion and violence. At once heartbreaking and utterly riveting, BLACK AND BLUE is an extraordinary work of fiction and a brilliant achievement.

For eighteen years, Fran Benedetto kept her secret, hid her bruises, and stayed with Bobby because she wanted her son to have a father and because, in spite of everything, she loved him. Then one night, when she saw the look on her ten-year-old son's face, Fran finally made a choice--and ran for both their lives.

With the repackaging of BLACK AND BLUE and One True Thing, Anna Quindlen takes her place alongside Dell's Alice McDermott and Rosellen Brown bringing their beloved, acclaimed contemporary classics to a whole new audience of trade paperback readers in Delta editions.

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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.

From the Back Cover:

The New York Times Bestseller

"Heartbreaking."
--Time

"Beautifully paced--keeps the reader anxiously turning the pages."
--The New York Times Book Review

"A gut-wrencher--another stunner."
--The Denver Post

"Impossible to put down--the tension is both awful and mesmerizing."
--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Engrossing--compassionate and tense."
--The New York Times

"Her best novel yet."
--Publishers Weekly

"Absolutely believable--Quindlen writes with power and grace."
--The Boston Globe

"A moving masterpiece."
--Lexington Herald-Leader

A selection of the Literary Guild and Oprah's Book Club

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