Book
Black and blue : a novel / Anna Quindlen.
A nurse escapes her abusive husband, a New York policeman, taking their son with her to Florida. She assumes a new identity and even finds romance, but there is a price, the 10-year-old boy misses his father and she lives in constant fear the father will find them, which he does. The novel analyzes why abused women wait so long to make their break.
Record details
- ISBN: 0385333137 (pbk.)
- ISBN: 0375500510 (acid-free)
- ISBN: 9780679435396 (acid-free)
- ISBN: 0440226104 (pbk.)
- Physical Description: 293 p. ; 25 cm.
- Edition: 1st ed.
- Publisher: New York : Random House, c1998.
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Wife abuse > Fiction. Abused women > Fiction. Family violence > Fiction. Runaway wives > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Domestic fiction. |
| Topic Heading: | Oprah club Oprah Winfrey book club Oprah's Book Club |
Available copies
- 9 of 11 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Fort St. James Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 11 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort St. James Public Library | QUI (Text) | 35196000064811 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 1998 February
Anna Quindlen has already won over thousands of fans with her best-selling novels, "Object Lessons" and "One True Thing," not to mention her Pulitzer Prize-winning "New York Times" columns. Later this year, moviegoers will be treated to Meryl Streep and William Hurt in the film version of "One True Thing." With all of these triumphs, however, Quindlen says that without a doubt, her latest novel, "Black and Blue" is her best yet.Yet she is also the first to admit that "Black and Blue" -- about a battered woman who takes her ten-year-old son and flees her abusive husband -- is not easy to digest. Radio host Don Imus, for instance, recently called and confessed that after reading the first sentence ("The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old"), he could go no further. Yes, Quindlen says, people may be surprised by the subject matter. "Over the years -- and not entirely with good reason, I might add --" she says, "I gained a reputation as a kind of cockeyed optimist. And I'm amazed by the extent to which early readers have managed to find some sort of optimistic resolution in this book despite the subject matter."Readers going beyond that first sentence will be duly rewarded, because the story is skillfully told, suspenseful, and filled with strong characters. Fran Benedetto, the heroine, doesn't come off as a victim. She's a nurse who enlists the help of a secretive organization to leave New York City and establish a brand-new identity and home for herself and her son in Florida."She's a very smart, together woman," Quindlen says of Fran. "You don't read about her and think poor, downtrodden person. She's very much a person you can imagine being a friend with. And being a good friend with. I think that's really important. There's a sense in which the book starts at the moment in which she refuses to be passive to anyone. . . . I admire her a lot."On the other hand, Quindlen had to paint a careful portrait of the abusive husband, Bobby, a police officer. "Fran is pretty crazy about him," Quindlen says. "One of the things that I really did not want to do was to demonize him. Which is why he gets to say a lot of pretty interesting and smart things. . . . I think there will be charges that this book indulges in male-bashing, so I think it's really important to recognize that both the most horrible character in this book and the most wonderful character are men."That latter character is Mike Riordan, a gym teacher in Florida who befriends both Robert and Fran and gradually takes a romantic interest in Fran.What inspired Quindlen to tackle such a tough subject?"I actually wanted to write a book about marriage," she says. "About how naive people are going into it, about what it really consists of, about how difficult and onerous it is. And also how increasingly we accept that men and women are very, very different psychologically, in the main, and yet we still yoke them together for life." "I'm not proposing any alternative," adds the happily married mother of three, "because I think that it's the only thing that works, and it's the bedrock of all that most of us do. And so when I sat down to work on this book, it occurred to me that frequently the truths about human experience are found at the margins of human experience . . . . [So to write about] a marriage that was very, very bad in some way indeed seemed to me one of the obvious ways to explore it."Quindlen does such a convincing job of conveying the terror Fran feels while trying to establish a new life, yet the details sprang from her imagination. Nor is she aware that anyone she knows is in an abusive relationship, although she realizes that many spouses are secretive about the problem. "I've had some glancing contact with women in this situation as a reporter," she says, "but I think it's important to say that I didn't do any research for this book. I think because of my background [working for the "New York Times"], people assume that I spent six months in shelters talking to women who have been beaten up. That belies the fact that to some extent the violence in this book is a metaphor for something else. It's a metaphor for a complete lack of communication and understanding that sometimes takes place in a marriage."Do organizations exist like the one that helps Fran escape to Florida and provides her with a new identity and apartment?"I have no idea," Quindlen says.Still, she is buoyed to note that when readers discuss "Black and Blue," they speak as though the characters are real. This was also the case when editors at Random House gathered to try to convince Quindlen to make some changes to the novel's ending. "I knew exactly what was going to happen," she says. "The people in publishing were very disconcerted by [what happened.] There was a lot of back and forth about whether I would change it." Not to give away the finale, but the author did agree to add one phone call to the last few pages, a call that she now deems "exactly right."But not exactly happy, either. People are so invested in happy endings," Quindlen muses. "I think that's why people are so frequently disappointed in their own lives, because they've had a bellyful of happy endings in film and fiction and they don't quite understand why it doesn't happen that way. And I think good literary fiction mirrors real life and I certainly think that this book does."One more thing that pleases the author has been the reaction of her sister, the manager of a Borders bookstore in San Diego. After finishing the novel, she called to say that she scoured it for autobiographical references, but ended up empty-handed. "And I said, 'There aren't any,' " Quindlen replies. "Given that there's an overblown sense of how much autobiography was in 'Object Lessons' and 'One True Thing,' it's very satisfying for me to have written a book that's really completely imagined."Even so, she predicts that some readers will assume the story is somehow true."There's a great irony," says the journalist-turned-novelist, "in the fact that people don't really seem to believe in fiction. And at the same time I was in the newspaper business for 25 years and we were constantly accused of making up the stuff that we wrote. I'm still trying to get my mind around that one."Interview by Alice Cary. Copyright 1999 BookPage Reviews - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 1998 January
Pulitzerwinning columnist and novelist Quindlen (One True Thing, 1994, etc.) now takes a talk-show staplespousal abuseand gives it a compelling immediacy in a refreshingly wise and truth- telling novel about life and marriage. Frannie, a nurse, fell deeply in love with Bobby, a handsome New York cop who at the time seemed attractively ``tasty and dangerous,'' as well as kind and thoughtful. But after 17 years of marriage, Bobby has become more dangerous than appealing. Tired of being beaten up, and now coping with a broken nose, Fran takes her ten-year-old son Robert and flees their Brooklyn home. Helped by a women's organization, she and Robert are given new identities and a new place to live: a duplex in Florida. Now known as Beth Crenshaw, Frannie also tries to make a new life for herself and Robert, whom she loves with a fierce and protective devotion. She finds a good friend in the resilient Cindy and a satisfying job as a visiting health aide. She grows close to her patients, especially Mrs. Levitt, a Holocaust survivor. But Frannie can't relax her vigilance: Bobby has resources and investigating tools that might make it easy to find her, and so while her life is increasingly normalshe dates Mike, Robert's nice soccer coachshe's still afraid. The tension is nail-biting but nicely complemented by perceptive insights, as in Frannie's meditation that ``whenever I thought about leaving, I thought about leaving my house . . . balloon shades and miniblinds . . . mugs for the coffee . . . small things; routine, order that's what kept me there for the longest time.'' Inevitably, Bobby catches up with her and exacts a terrible revenge, but an appropriately bittersweet ending gives Fran, who'll always wonder whether she was right to flee, a new love and life. Quindlen writes about women as they really areneither helpless victims nor angry polemicists, but intelligent human beings struggling to do what's right for those they love and for themselves. A book to read and savor. (Author tour) Copyright 1998 Kirkus Reviews - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 1998 February
Fran Benedetto has had enough of her self-centered husband's brutality. Though Fran has long loved Bobby passionately, his roughhousing turned into abuse early in their marriage, when the stress of his police career began taking its toll. Fran's concern about the situation's effects on Robert, her too-quiet ten-year-old, together with a particularly vicious battering, goads her to run. An underground organization helps her flee with Robert to a small Florida town, where she begins a new life as "Beth Crenshaw." At first the fugitives are miserable, but gradually they settle into the community with a kind of family normalcy they have never experienced. As Fran/Beth strains to make a home, she also struggles with her beliefs about family, love, and her own identity. And, during every seemingly safe moment among her new friends, she lives with the fear of discovery and its possibly lethal consequences. Quindlen (One True Thing, LJ 9/15/94) has created in her third novel a well-paced narrative whose themes reflect important contemporary social concerns. Though Fran's internal musings sometimes slow down the action noticeably, and the crucial character of Bobby is a one-dimensional sketch, the book's pluses will outweigh its drawbacks for most readers of popular fiction. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/97.]?Starr E. Smith, Marymount Univ. Lib., Arlington, Va. Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 1997 October
The ever-popular Quindlen's black-and-blue heroine flees an abusive marriage to begin life anew with her ten-year-old son. But is she safe? A 14-city author tour may bring Quindlen to your doorstep. Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 1997 December #3
After two fine earlier efforts, Object Lessons and One True Thing, Quindlen has written her best novel yet in this unerringly constructed and paced, emotionally accurate tale of domestic abuse. Her protagonist is Frannie Benedetto, a 37-year-old Brooklyn housewife, mother and nurse who finally finds the courage to escape from her violent husband Bobby, a New York City cop. Under an assumed identity in a tacky central Florida town, Frannie and her 10-year-old son, Robert, attempt to build a new life, but there is a price to pay, and when it comes, it carries the heartstopping logic of inevitability and the irony of fate. Quindlen establishes suspense from the first sentence and never falters. She cogently explores the complex emotional atmosphere of abuse: why some women cling to the memory of their original love and wait too long to break free. She makes palpable Frannie's fear, pain, self-contempt and, later, guilt over depriving Robert of the father he adores. As Frannie and Robert make tentative steps in their new community, Quindlen conveys their sense of dislocation and anxiety compounded by their sense of loss. Weaving the domestic fabric that is her forte, she flawlessly reproduces the mundane dialogue between mother and son, between Frannie and the friends she makes and the people she serves in her new job as a home health-care aide. Among the triumphs of Quindlen's superb ear for voices is the character of an elderly Jewish woman whose moribund husband is Frannie's patient. Above all, Quindlen is wise and humane. Her understanding of the complex anatomy of marital relationships, of the often painful bond of maternal love and of the capacity to survive tragedy and carry on invest this moving novel with the clarion ring of truth. Literary Guild selection; Random House audio; author tour. (Feb.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews - School Library Journal Reviews : SLJ Reviews 1998 April
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 School Library Journal Reviews
