Black and Blue: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
by Anna Quindlen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anna QuindlenEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-02-02
ISBN: 0440226104
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Dell
Book Reviews of Black and Blue: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: I Am Fran
Summary: 5 Stars
My name isn't Fran but her story is mine. December 17, my husband threatened to kill our baby and me. That day, I felt as though the hole in my heart was big enough to swallow the world. I vowed to leave him after Christmas. But, six days later, he tried to rape me while I held our infant. I don't know where I got the strength to knock down my husband, a Marine who is a foot taller that I am, with one arm, while holding our son with the other. Christmas Eve, to make me pay for defending myself against him, he shook our son. I will never forget the shrill, piercing sound our baby made. I was in the bathroom and my husband wasn't supposed to be home; he had left to finally do his Christmas shopping and I hadn't heard him return. I ran into the nursery to see my husband yank the baby like a rag doll. I moved so quickly that I don't even remember crossing the room. One minute my husband was shaking our baby, the next minute, I was in a hotel, kissing my son, praying that my husband wouldnt find us and that we could make it safely out of the state. Christmas day, nothing was open except for a convenience store. My Christmas meal was a hot dog but I was fine because all that mattered was my son's safety. My baby had faint bruises where his father yanked him but the person who examined himIcouldn't find any signs of damage. Still, I was told that sometimes such injuries aren't apparent until months later. At the first motel, an employee came to my room to say that a man had called asking if there was a woman, baby and car fitting our description. Sensing something was wrong, she told him no to buy me a little time. For the next week and a half, we moved from place to place, until my dad and brother could escort me back to my house to get what was most important - videotapes of my son's birth and first few months, as many pictures as I could stuff in my suitcase, and my teaching certificate-- and personally escort us to the airport. My family, my friends, my career as a teacher, my car, everything else, I left behind. Several thousand miles from my husband and my struggle isn't over. I constantly look over my shoulder, take different routes home, change my hair, my clothing style, change my son's appearance, don't tell anyone details about my former life and pray, pray, pray because sooner or later, my husband will find us. My name and where I am have been changed, for safety reasons, but I just wanted anyone who thinks that that story isn't realistic to know how eerily accurate it is. It is a miracle that my son has no damage, despite test after test. If my story sounds like someone you once knew and she didn't get a chance to say good-bye, know that I love you and "Mr. Big Cheeks "and I are fine. We are finally free.
Summary of Black and Blue: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
For eighteen years, Fran Benedetto kept her secret. And 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.--Now she is starting over in a city far from home, far from Bobby. And in this place she uses a name that isn't hers, and cradles her son in her arms, and tries to forget. For the woman who now calls herself Beth, every day is a chance to heal, to put together the pieces of her shattered self. And every day she waits for Bobby to catch up to her. Because Bobby always said he would never let her go. And despite the flawlessness of her escape, Fran Benedetto is certain of one thing: It is only a matter of time.--
Oprah Book ClubŪ 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.
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