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Black and Blue: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club) (Mass Market Paperback) (平装)
by Anna Quindlen
| Category:
Escape, Family, Story |
| Market price: ¥ 108.00
MSL price:
¥ 98.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
This book was a great eye-opener to the world of domestic violence and abusive relationships by portraying the life of a woman and son in hiding from a wife beating husband. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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The New York Times (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-29 00:00>
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. |
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Jill Smolowe (People) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-29 00:00>
...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. |
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Time (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-29 00:00>
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. |
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Shane Fallon (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-29 00:00>
For eighteen years Fran Benedetto lived life in fear-and hid her bruises. For her husband Robert beat her. And beat her. And beat her. Until one awful night she took her son and everything they could carry to hide herself from the monster she had married. The two, under the help of a battered wives agency, flee to Florida and try to start new lives with new names and new appearances. But Fran's husband is a smart man. And he will stop at nothing to find her and take back what he thinks is his.
A truly extraordinary author, Anna Quindlen chronicles on womans journey into the unthinkable. The characters are terrificly strong and believable. The ending is so heartbreaking and terrifying that you wonder-and know that this can really happen. This is a masterpiece, an important book that should be read and learned from. Anna Quindlen will live on through the face of literature and will be read and loved in years to come.
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Deborah Di Gioia (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-29 00:00>
Anna Quindlen is one of my Favorite Authors and I have to say that Black and Blue has to be her at her finest. This was a book I was not able to put down at all. The characters are very realistic and you get a true understanding of all the emotions that they are feeling.
Fran Benedetto, a nurse who lives in NYC and seems to be happily married to her husband Bobby but she is a victim of Domestic Violence. The book deals more with Fran trying to escape her situation by going underground and assuming a new identity with her son Robert but its extremely hard to run away from a police officer. I was able to feel the suspense on every page wondering if or when her husband would catch up to her.
Anna Quindlen does an excellent job describing each and every emotion that Fran must have been feeling and this book gave me a new understanding of Spousal Abuse. This book is a real pageturner and it is one I would highly recommend and I would also highly recommend One True Thing also written by Ms. Quindlen.
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Ratmammy (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-29 00:00>
Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
A novel about an abused woman's path to freedom, BLACK AND BLUE introduces us to the world of Fran Benedetto, a woman who is beaten and emotionally abused every day by the only man she's ever loved, her husband Bobby.
Fran lives day by day in a type of fear that can't even be described. A wrong word or a wrong look - anything could set off Bobby's anger. A broken nose or a black eye - Bobby lashes out at Fran in any way he can. It seems to start out as a mistake, a fluke, but as the years go by, Bobby continues to beat Fran for the slightest thing, and does not see anything wrong in what he does to her.
The fact that Bobby is a policeman makes this a scarier ordeal for Fran. Bobby knows that even if Fran goes to the police, no one would believe that he had beaten up his own wife. His reputation on the force seems to be legendary. On the other hand, if Fran did try to go to the police, no one could protect her from his wrath after finding out what she did.
Fran keeps these abuses and fears to herself. Her son Robert asks Fran, "how did that happen?" when he sees her with a black eye. Fran always has an answer, always avoids telling him the truth. And Robert looks the other way. Although old enough to understand what is happening, he is still too young to want to accept such a thing happening between his parents. So he chooses to pretend that everything is ok.
Fran could only take so much abuse. She takes their son Robert and leaves for Florida under the guidance of Patty Bancroft, a leader of a group that helps battered women like Fran by relocating them with a whole new identity, saving them from the men that are abusing them. Fran starts a new life with a new name, and slowly things begin to fall in to place. But, no matter what Patty tells her, Fran feels that Bobby will one day find them. And when he does, Fran knows her life is over.
BLACK AND BLUE was one of those books that kept me glued to every page. What surprised me is that I did not cry once or feel any real strong emotions while I read this book except for fear. The book for me was more like a suspense novel, and secondarily a novel about spousal abuse. The author focused more on Fran's attempt to forge a new life for herself and her son and on her every day fears that Bobby would eventually find her. With that said, I highly enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it. It was an Oprah Selection, but for me it was not as typical a choice as some of her past books.
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Allyn (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-30 00:00>
Fran Benedetto has a secret. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, her husband has been abusing her. Now, after nearly twenty years of marriage, Fran has decided that enough is enough. With her 10-year-old son and the help of Patty Bancroft (director of an agency to help battered women, Fran(who must change her name to Beth Crenshaw)goes to a small Florida town, hoping to escape her husband and begin a better life.
The struggle doesn't end when Fran and Robert make it safely to Florida. Fran struggles with a constant fearful knowledge that her husband will eventually get her, she feels homesick for her sister in New York, and she worries that her son is more confused and hurt than he lets on. Things become still more complicated when Fran meets Mike Riordan, Robert's fifth-grade teacher, and begins to desire a relationship with him.
Anna Quindlen's skillful writing is what saves this book from being yet another cliched "abused-wife-escapes" book. Yes, the abused wife escapes, but Quindlen describes Fran's experiences with understanding and insight. Her descriptions are some of the best I've ever read-she seems to know exactly how many words are needed to crystallize a situation, and we are taken on "journeys" through Fran's mind that never bore us and leave us with a clear understanding of the character. Cynical, nostalgic, sad, sarcastic-Quindlen deftly writes in all of those tones and creates a truly realistic novel. Characters were again, realistic and well-chosen. The only real flaw in this novel was the fact that between the second last and last chapters, there was too big of an amount of time "gone by," and as a result, the reader is left with some unanswered questions, a feeling that the author was rushing to end the book, and the thought that the book ended in a slightly "anti-climactic" way. Despite this fault, I found "Black and Blue" to be well-written, enlightening, and worth reading.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-30 00:00>
While giving the dark details of a marriage between an abuser and his wife, this book also gives a glimmer of hope for the person reading it. I too have found myself saying throughout reading this book, oh yeah, I so know what she's talking about. Oh yes, that happened to me too. And I never thought I would relate to the main character, Fran/Beth as she escapes from an abusive husband. Her fears of being found, thoughts of how it's her fault and so on are disturbingly realistic.
More and more women are talking about domestic violent, and just now, they are being taken a lot more seriously. Fortunately, some of us don't have to go underground changing our lifestyles completely, moving to a strange place just so we can stay alive but this book speaks to our deepest fears. We fear of losing everything - our homes, our friends, our children and our lives because we fear the one person who promised to protect and cherish us. If we can't trust the one man who promised to protect us especially from him, then how can we trust anyone else? Quindlen explores that issue with a thorough directness throughout her book.
As gloomy as this book may be, there is a glimmer of hope. Victims of domestic abuse can relive their lives again even with the fear that hangs over them for the rest of their lives. It's about one woman who decides to live her life despite her ex-husband and having to go "underground" for awhile. She finds true love the second time around with a man who doesn't use violence to control her.
Every woman should read this book and see the dark sides of marriages that do happen and women should speak up against domestic violence - it can happen to you.
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Ralph A. Kellogg (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-30 00:00>
I read this book about a year ago, and was deeply tocuhed by the story Quindlen told. I am son of a battered woman and while never witness to the attacks my father inflicted on my mother, this book allowed me to expereince her pain. The book afforded me the opportunity to find the truth behind what it means to be abused, to have one's dignity and self respect stripped from one's being day by day hit by hit verbal barb by verbal barb. The thing that I found most compelling about Quindlen's novel is that she did not conclude the story with a "pretty bow on the box". While it is true that brusies and scars heal, victims of domestic abuse never truly recover from being abused, as the psychological scars stay with them their entire lives. I applaud this book for its honesty, and I found Quindlen's character developemnt of Fran and the exploration of her internal motivations to be very compelling. This is an excellent book for readers who want to know about the impact domestic violence has its victims and the ripple effects the experience of being abused has on victims lives.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-30 00:00>
In "Black and Blue", Anna Quindlen has put a daring face on ultimate real life terror. In one opening line, "The first time my husband hit me I was 19 years old", we are swept into a seductive, violent, tense world.
I was engrossed by this woeful tale. Yet, I found myself frowning most of the time. Lines forming on my face from a bit of bogged down writing, but mainly from the subject matter. I prefer to read more escapism, but once in a while I need to slap my reality senses into order.
A good read, especially in the beginning. If it helps one woman escape this sort of brutality, Ms. Quindlen has done her job well.
Thank you for your interest & comments-CDS
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1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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