Black and Blue

Phimister readily transforms herself into the girl next door, the sort of character whose earnestness and sincerity easily capture our sympathy and affection. Not that Quindlen's heroine, an abused wife named Frannie Benedetto, would have trouble attracting any right-thinking listener to her side. After enduring years of beatings by Bobby, her cop husband, Fran flees from their Brooklyn home with their 10-year-old son to construct an anonymous new life in Florida. The book is that odd contradiction, a page-turner in which nothing really comes as a surprise. The strength of the novel and the reading is a heroine who is likable and complex, full of the contradictions that we can recognize in ourselves. Unfortunately, Phimister cannot breathe such reality into Quindlen's villain, whose inner life is never revealed. He's a thug, and we never experience him as more. M.O. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Starred review from December 29, 1997
After two fine earlier efforts, Object Lessons and One True Thing, Quindlen has written her best novel yet in this unerringly constructed and paced, emotionally accurate tale of domestic abuse. Her protagonist is Frannie Benedetto, a 37-year-old Brooklyn housewife, mother and nurse who finally finds the courage to escape from her violent husband Bobby, a New York City cop. Under an assumed identity in a tacky central Florida town, Frannie and her 10-year-old son, Robert, attempt to build a new life, but there is a price to pay, and when it comes, it carries the heartstopping logic of inevitability and the irony of fate. Quindlen establishes suspense from the first sentence and never falters. She cogently explores the complex emotional atmosphere of abuse: why some women cling to the memory of their original love and wait too long to break free. She makes palpable Frannie's fear, pain, self-contempt and, later, guilt over depriving Robert of the father he adores. As Frannie and Robert make tentative steps in their new community, Quindlen conveys their sense of dislocation and anxiety compounded by their sense of loss. Weaving the domestic fabric that is her forte, she flawlessly reproduces the mundane dialogue between mother and son, between Frannie and the friends she makes and the people she serves in her new job as a home health-care aide. Among the triumphs of Quindlen's superb ear for voices is the character of an elderly Jewish woman whose moribund husband is Frannie's patient. Above all, Quindlen is wise and humane. Her understanding of the complex anatomy of marital relationships, of the often painful bond of maternal love and of the capacity to survive tragedy and carry on invest this moving novel with the clarion ring of truth. Literary Guild selection; Random House audio; author tour.

Repeatedly beaten by her husband, a Brooklyn cop, Fran Benedetto secretly relocates to Florida with her 10-year-old son. As Beth, she starts a new life--complete with job, friends and love interest. It's only a matter of time, of course, before she's found, with heart-wrenching consequences. Telling the story five years later, Fran/Beth still sounds like a victimized, shell-shocked Northerner. Despite the many good things that have since happened, she can't get by the sadness in her life. Reader Taylor does better with New York City accents than she does with small-town Southern. Gaps in time, perhaps caused by the abridgment, could have been made clearer by pauses. These reservations notwithstanding, this is a powerful tale credibly told. J.B.G. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine