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By Anna Quindlen
Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club Selection: 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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