Fran: Q is for Quindlen

Yeah, well, there aren't that many Qs.  And I'd at least heard of Anna Quindlen.  I'm pretty sure I've read an essay or two here and there.  So I picked up a book, complete with Oprah's Book Club sticker, on the theory that I might be ok.

Black and Blue is not a book I would normally read.  The black and blue of the title are the bruises of Frannie Benedetto, given to her by her abusive policeman husband.  She leaves him, through a network of helpers, and takes their son.  In the year that follows, we see her go from her immediate traumas to more groundedness; what makes this alive is the way Quindlen writes the character.  We see her triggered with love, loathing, fear, reconciliation--in the complicated ways that people interact, that make an abusive relationship stand not just as a weak-woman with an aggressive man.  We see the ways in which this relationship was a dance, back and forth; we see this even when she's away from Bobby Benedetto.  The book hinges on the custody issues that often arise in these cases--where the battered spouse may take the child but doesn't necessarily have legal rights to the child, where the abusive spouse may steal the child back.  Black and Blue are clearly also emotions--anger and sadness color the whole book.

It is a testament to the strength of Quindlen's writing that I finished this book.  I almost put it down after the first chapter, especially as the character and I share first names...creepy.  Quindlen is a compelling writer of character.  Can I recommend it? not really.  I do think it is a long ramble for a book--that it could have been paired down some.  I think too that its point is clear in a shorter format; I don't think we would have loved Fran less if we'd seen her beaten less, or understood her and her child's adjustment needs and coping less.  I'm not sure that I don't also understand the issues of domestic abuse better now than I would have in 1998 when the book was written; I think we've done a lot in almost 20 years to bring the issue out of the shadows.  But perhaps, in 1998, we needed this book.

(I still may try one of the other Qs I picked up)