Black and Blue
Announced on April 9, 1998
About the Book 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 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."
About the Author
Anna Quindlen is the author of two best-selling novels, Object Lessons and One True Thing. Her New York Times column "Public & Private" won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, and a selection of these columns was published as Thinking Out Loud. She is also the author of a collection of her "Life in the 30's" columns, Living Out Loud, and two children's books, The Tree That Came to Stay and Happily Ever After.
Anna Quindlen is the author of two best-selling novels, Object Lessons and One True Thing. Her New York Times column "Public & Private" won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, and a selection of these columns was published as Thinking Out Loud. She is also the author of a collection of her "Life in the 30's" columns, Living Out Loud, and two children's books, The Tree That Came to Stay and Happily Ever After.
Book Reviews
"Black and Blue... could be described as a low-key thriller about domestic violence and a woman's need for self-esteem. Quindlen understands thrillers, and her story is well constructed, beautifully paced...."
— The New York Times
"So uncompromising in its portrait of life and death, so honest in its rendering of love and loss, that it is simply impossible to forget."
— Alice Hoffman "One thing is true: this is a remarkable book. Anna Quindlen writes about family with all the humnaity, wit, and pain of going home. This is a strikingly honest and transforming book."
— Wendy Wasserstein "There is not a single false word in One True Thing. Readers of her columns in the Times are aware that Anna Quindlen has a first-class mind; now they will know she as a gret heart as well."
— Susan Isaacs
"Black and Blue... could be described as a low-key thriller about domestic violence and a woman's need for self-esteem. Quindlen understands thrillers, and her story is well constructed, beautifully paced...."
— The New York Times
"So uncompromising in its portrait of life and death, so honest in its rendering of love and loss, that it is simply impossible to forget."
— Alice Hoffman "One thing is true: this is a remarkable book. Anna Quindlen writes about family with all the humnaity, wit, and pain of going home. This is a strikingly honest and transforming book."
— Wendy Wasserstein "There is not a single false word in One True Thing. Readers of her columns in the Times are aware that Anna Quindlen has a first-class mind; now they will know she as a gret heart as well."
— Susan Isaacs
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