Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen

Women and Adversity: Black and Blue

by Anna Quindlen

Domestic violence gained headlines and earned hours of TV and radio time over the past few weeks, but Anna Quindlen brought the topic to the forefront and bestseller status in 1998 with her novel “Black and Blue.”

The book begins: The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old.

Abused wife Fran Benedetto escapes with the help of a company that rescues battered women from their plight and assists them in establishing a life away from the abuser. Graphic descriptions are included, and emotions spill on the pages. The reader is caught up in the immediacy of the terror, the flight, the fright and the devastation to the life of this abused wife and her child.

Fran’s experiences are true to life, and battered women will attest to the fact——when they are away from the abusers. People always ask the abused woman, “Why didn’t you leave?”

The answer is complicated. Those who heard Janay Palmer Rice give her side of the abuse she experienced at the hands of her now-husband Ray Rice and her assessment of the incident shake their heads.

I was a volunteer at Home Harbor Home in Brunswick County, N.C. for about five years and on its board for eight. I saw the ravages of abuse and heard the stories. Domestic abuse is real and surrounds us.

Help for victims of domestic abuse is at: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_help_

treatment_prevention.htm and 800-799-7233.