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| Black and Blue (Oprah's Book Club) | 
 enlarge | Author: Anna Quindlen
Publisher: Delta
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $2.44
You Save: $12.56 (84%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  450 reviews
Sales Rank: 8537
Media: Paperback
Edition: Oprah's Book Club
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0385333137
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385333139
ASIN: 0385333137
Publication Date: February 8, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: While most of the books offered by Bayfront Books are better than simply "Good," some of these books may show some damage to their dust jackets (where applicable), may have spines showing signs of wear, and may include limited notations and highlighting.
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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.
Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 445 more reviews...
Parts excellent, others less so July 20, 2008
As an occasional reader of Anna Quindlen's column (who often disagrees or doesn't quite like what's written), it's hard to disagree with the fact that Quindlen is an excellent writer and has an intelligent mind. This was the first novel of hers that I read, and I'll probably seek out more.
But I didn't really love the book. I liked a lot of it, that's true. But some parts bothered me quite a bit. The writing is really great - you're immersed into this world wholly and feel like characters around you are warm and alive. From son Robert to neighbor Cindy, there's this vivid and clear world. The story runs on a perfectly smooth track, alternating rather well (I felt) between past and present.
Meanwhile, I didn't really like the end. I didn't like the rather stereotypical situation with the husband and the husband's character (abusive, possessive cop... overdone perhaps?). The description of abuse was laid on rather well but felt used and kind of dry. I thought main character Fran/Beth could have been drawn better. And most of all, I felt some parts of the book were a bit far-fetched.
I really liked the book until the very ending where, though it touched my heart, I felt a bit empty. Perhaps this was the intention, but with other far-fetched moments throughout the book it added up to being simply a four-star book - well-written, much better than most, but still lacking in some places. I enjoyed reading it all the way through and comparatively, it's a high four or a four-and-a-half, but some parts were definitely weaker.
Good side-character characterization, excellent writing, extremely difficult and important topic, and very good presentation means that this book is fairly good. While it's not a classic, it's a deep and significant read that I would recommend and one that will lead me to seek out more of Quindlen's novels.
 Boring, long winded and pathetically predictable May 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The title of my review sums it up. Quindlen went all over the map, describing people, emotions and scenarios that were empty. I skipped dozens of pages of yawn-infused diatribe to get to something...anything...that would be interesting. The ending was so predictable it was laughable and an insult to her readers. Not her best effort.
Blue on Black, a whisper on a shout February 22, 2008
Anna Quindlen can really write well, and I enjoyed this book a lot. It's the story of one woman's daring escape after years of domestic abuse. Unfortunately, this tale has been told a couple dozen times in the last few years, but Quindlen works hard to make it feel fresh.
The characters are the best part of Quindlen's writing. Their emotions seem real, which is the hallmark of good writing. My book club agreed that this is one of the best books that we've read recently, like Rabid: A Novel by T.K. Kenyon and The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library) by Margeret Atwood.
Minna
 Just okay. February 22, 2008
I was never really captivated by this book until page 170 or so. That's about when the story really got moving. There was a lot of switching back and forth between memories and present, and the transitions weren't clear. So, I was often confused. In my opinion, the book was just okay. Nothing overly exciting, never got really attached to the characters.
 Black and Blue with flying colors January 18, 2008
Anna Quindlen - a literary treasure of our time.
The book tells the story of an abused woman who has had enough and runs away from her husband, a police officer. She takes her son with her. She coincidentally finds an organization that helps women like herself to start a new life - an organization that claims that their program is more efficient than the witness protection program. The story goes back and forth from her new (completely new) life, and flashbacks to her life of abuse. What was so interesting about the story-telling was that there was the constant wondering of whether this husband of hers would find her. As a reader, I was sweating with the main character, everytime the phone rang or when there were strangers or policemen at her son's school. A true page-turner.
Quindlen's set up of the characters were so real that when the characters spoke, (call me crazy) I could imagine what kind of voice they'd have if I were to really hear them in person.
Even if you're not a fan of this genre or this subject matter, this book is an awesome piece of literature. Read it.
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