Black and Blue

Dell, 1999. Near Fine. Oprah Book Club® 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 abus ed and tortured world is swung wide open and the psyche of a crushed and ta ttered self-image exposed. "Frannie, Frannie, Fran"--as Bobby Benedetto lik ed to call her before smashing her into kitchen appliances--was a young, en ergetic 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 sent ence of incessant abuse and the destruction of her own identity. After an e specially horrific beating and rape, Fran realizes that the next attack cou ld 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 Ba ncroft and Co., a relocation agency for abused women that touts better serv ice than the witness protection program. Armed only with a phone number, a few hundred dollars, and the help of several anonymous volunteers, Fran beg ins 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 un til their past returns to haunt them. Quindlen renders the intricacies of s pousal abuse with eerie accuracy, taking the reader deep within the realm o f dysfunctional human ties. However, her vivid descriptions of abuse, emoti.