WITH THIS STUNNING NOVEL ABOUT A WOMAN

and a marriage that begins in passion and becomes

violent, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and

bestselling author of One True Thing and Object

Lessons moves to a new dimension as a writer of

superb fiction. "if literature were judged solely by

its ability to elicit strong emotions," Kirkus Reviews

said about One True Thing, "columnist-cum-

novelist Quindlen would win another Pulitzer."

And the same will be said about Black and Blue, a

brilliant novel of suspense, substance, and impor-

tance.

In Black and Blue, Fran Benedetto tells a spell-

binding story: how at nineteen she fell in love with

Bobby Benedetto, bower heir passionate marriage

became a nightmare, why she stayed, and what

happened on the night she finally decided to run

away with her ten-year-old son and start a new life

under a new name. Living in fear in Florida---yet

with increasing confidence, freedom, and hope

Fran unravels the complex threads of family, iden-

tity, and desire that shape a woman s life, even as

she begins to create a new one. As Fran starts to

heal from the pain of the past, she almost believes

she has escaped it--that Bobby Benedetto will not

find her and again provoke the complex combus-

tion between them of attraction and destruction,

lust and love.

Black and Blue is a beautifully written, beart-

stopping story in which Anna Quindlen writes with

power, wisdom, and humor about the real lives of

men and women, the varieties of people and love,

the bonds between mother and child, the solace of

family and friendship, the inexplicable feelings

between people who are passionately connected in

ways they don t understand. It is a remarkable

work of fiction by the writer whom Alice Hoffman

has called "a national treasure."