Quindlen Goes Small Screen
Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist and novelist Anna Quindlen is taking her latest bestseller, Black And Blue, to the small screen. The CBS television movie stars Mary Stuart Masterson and Anthony Lapaglia.
Black And Blue is about a woman named Fran Benedetto whose husband has abused her for more than a decade. Fran finally decides she's had enough.
"The book is not just about domestic violence; it's really a novel about identity and who you are when you take away your connections to everyone else in your life," said Quindlen. "It is about all the different roles we, as women, play."
Quindlen told CBS News Early Show Co-Anchor Jane Clayson she didn't do any research about domestic violence. She was convinced if she knew Fran from the bottom up, then she would understand the situation she was in and how she was going to get herself out of it.
Mary Stuart Masterson almost passed on the role as Fran Benedetto. But then as she started to read the story, it was the complex characters that Anna described and the writing was so good she knew this would be a good role to play.
The story is about two people who are in love, who have a serious problem and don't know what to do about it. The Benedettos are locked in the silent world of not knowing and don't share what is happening with anybody.
Bobby Benedetto is not a villain. Quindlen says he is a New York City cop who should be viewed as a charming, caring individual. She describes him as a "flawed" human being and a very complex man. Although we are never sure, we believe he probably has had some sort violent past.
An Irish Catholic girl who married her high school sweetheart, Fran Benedetto is smart, funny and courageous. Yet she lives in this hot house of violence for a long time. Fran is a trauma nurse and a mother who can not demonize her husband because she is still in love with him and he is the father of her son.
Quindlen explains that if we set up this culture in America of victims and villains, it just insulates us from the idea that bad things can happen to us. The characters are not black and white. Quindlen feels this is an important element because we are then able to see the full complexity in the movie.
Masterson fought to keep more of the violent scenes in the movie because she thought if they didn't show the violence then it would be a disservice to the public. She wants women to understand this could be their husbands and that it could happen to them.
This story is really having an empower affect on abused women and Quindlen said she did not expet the response she has received from this book.
"One woman said to me,'I called 911 with this book in my hand,' it takes your breath away," Quindlen said. "You never expect to do that with fiction but when it happens, you're grateful."
Black and Blue will be Quindlen's second novel to be picked up by a producer. Her other novel, One True Thing, went to the Big Screen and this novel is now a TV movie. She wanted a producer like Gerry Abrams who understood the work and was passionate about it.