SOURCE: Russell, Margaret. “Fighting Back.” Women's Review of Books 15, nos. 10-11 (July 1998): 22-3.

In the following excerpt, Russell praises Quindlen for creating the right tone for her novel Black and Blue.

Images and themes of women and violence are an easy sell in popular culture. Through the reporting of rapes on the evening news to the hairpulling slugfests on the Jerry Springer Show to the numbing array of “slasher” novels and movies, violence in the everyday lives of women comes to seem both ubiquitous and unremarkable. Violence against, as well as by, women is often depicted not to illuminate its influence, but to shock, titillate and entertain. Only with the emergence of female narratives of violence can we begin to recognize the wide range of reactions to the real brutality and chaos that permeate many women's experiences of the world. Three new novels offer intriguing—and divergent—perspectives...