Judy Blume: A Life
Author: Mark Oppenheimer
ISBN-13: 9781915590558
Publisher: Scribe
Guideline Price: £25
In his comprehensive and quirky biography, Judy Blume: A Life, Mark Oppenheimer picks up on a journalistic tendency to describe Blume as “girlish”, suggesting it as a reflection of a critical establishment prone to undermining Blume’s seriousness as a writer.
Oppenheimer’s struggle with this depiction points to the heart of his study: the provocative idea of girlhood, and childhood in general, as subjects worthy of literary and critical consideration.
Blume, whom Oppenheimer traces from her middle-class Jewish upbringing in the 1940s through three marriages, motherhood and the development of her astonishing literary career – she has sold more than 90 million books – emerges as brilliantly “girlish”. She is thrilled by reinvention and performance, hyperattuned to interpersonal dynamics, ambitious as well as people-pleasing. All qualities that inform her best work.
Drawing on conversations with Blume and her peers, the most vivid sections of this biography concern Blume’s early years. Hers is a personality shaped by the era’s gendered constraints but also an intense, liberated curiosity. Blume was never afraid or ashamed of puberty or sexuality. This openness is integral to classics such as Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which, Oppenheimer writes, “takes seriously the ... development of an adolescent girl”. It was as radical as it was readable.
In a way that recalls Annie Ernaux’s The Years, the intensity of Blume’s early life fades into the stagnation of marriage and motherhood.
Her writing, initially inspired by Dr Seuss, became a lifeline. It was a slow process. Judy Blume: A Life is a fascinating insight into the business of writing. It also presents the discovery of a literary voice as a psychological rebirth. Oppenheimer deftly unpicks the exchange between Blume’s life and her books: her fiction drew on experience, but her fiction also pushed her towards real-world changes.
Oppenheimer’s style is refreshingly unpretentious: a homage to his subject. It is also tinged with a nostalgia that feels occasionally twee, but also honest. A longing to bridge the gap between subject and author is palpable: testament to the impossible aspirations of biography, and to Oppenheimer’s reality. He and Blume were friends. Over the writing of this biography, that friendship cooled.
This work will fascinate the Blume aficionado and compel the uninitiated to quickly join the ranks.
Maya Kulukundis is a writer based in Dublin.
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