Black and Blue: Summary and book reviews of Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen, plus links to an excerpt from Black and Blue and a biography of Anna Quindlen.
Black and Blue
by Anna Quindlen
Hardcover: Feb 1998,
293 pages.
Paperback: Feb 1999,
396 pages.
With this stunning novel about a woman and a marriage that begins in
passion and becomes violent, the Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist and bestselling author
of One True Thing and Object Lessons moves to a new dimension as a writer of
superb fiction. "If literature were judged solely by its ability to elicit strong
emotions," Kirkus Reviews said about One True Thing,
"columnist-cum-novelist Quindlen would win another Pulitzer." And the same will
be said about Black and Blue, a brilliant novel of suspense, substance, and
importance.
In Black and Blue, Fran Benedetto tells a spellbinding story: how at nineteen she
fell in love with Bobby Benedetto, how their passionate marriage became a nightmare, why
she stayed, and what happened on the night she finally decided to run away with her
ten-year-old son and start a new life under a new name. Living in fear in Florida--yet
with increasing confidence, freedom, and hope--Fran unravels the complex threads of
family, identity, and desire that shape a woman's life, even as she begins to create a new
one. As Fran starts to heal from the pain of the past, she almost believes she has escaped
it--that Bobby Benedetto will not find her and again provoke the complex combustion
between them of attraction and destruction, lust and love.
Black and Blue is a beautifully written, heart-stopping story in which Anna
Quindlen writes with power, wisdom, and humor about the real lives of men and women, the
varieties of people and love, the bonds between mother and child, the solace of family and
friendship, the inexplicable feelings between people who are passionately connected in
ways they don't understand. It is a remarkable work of fiction by the writer whom Alice
Hoffman has called "a national treasure."
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Quindlen writes about women as they really are,
neither
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.
The New York Times Book Review
Perhaps Quindlen intended to use Black and Blue as a
way to dramatize the gravity of domestic violence; unfortunately, the novel is
nowhere near as convincing as the news reports all of us have seen on
television. But it does keep the reader anxiously turning pages.
The New York Times Book Review
Perhaps Quindlen intended to use Black and Blue as a
way to dramatize the gravity of domestic violence; unfortunately, the novel is
nowhere near as convincing as the news reports all of us have seen on
television. But it does keep the reader anxiously turning pages.
People
...Anna Quindlen demonstrates the same winning
qualities that inform her journalism close observation, well-reasoned argument
and appealing economy of language.... this portrait of a battered woman is
intimate and illuminating and, as is true of most anything Quindlen writes, well
worth the read.
Time
In Anna Quindlen's third novel, Black
and Blue, the former New York Times columnist has caught the evil
essence. If its moment should prove to be right (a long shot, to be sure), the
novel is good enough to become to domestic violence what Uncle Tom's Cabin was to
slavery - a morally crystallizing act of propaganda that
works because it has the ring of truth.
The Washington Post Book World
Quindlen knows that all the things we ever will be can be found in
some forgotten fragment of family.
Time
In Anna Quindlen's third novel, Black
and Blue, the former New York Times columnist has caught the evil
essence. If its moment should prove to be right (a long shot, to be sure), the
novel is good enough to become to domestic violence what Uncle Tom's Cabin was to
slavery - a morally crystallizing act of propaganda that
works because it has the ring of truth.
People
...Anna Quindlen demonstrates the same winning
qualities that inform her journalism close observation, well-reasoned argument
and appealing economy of language.... this portrait of a battered woman is
intimate and illuminating and, as is true of most anything Quindlen writes, well
worth the read.
The Washington Post Book World
Quindlen knows that all the things we ever will be can be found in
some forgotten fragment of family.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Julia Good Taken Back I love this story. It brings back a lot of terrible memories from my previous marriage such as the abuse (physically and mentally) that I endured.
Rated of 5
by annonymous I ADORE THIS BOOK I love this novel so much. I was kinda forced to read it for school but I fell in love with it. I read it in one day and I could not put it down. LOL. It balances fear, happiness, hatred and love and yet somehow, you end up in tears... I love it...
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Kirkus Reviews
The New York Times Book Review
of 5
by Julia Good
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