Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | SCD FICTION BLU 11 DISCS | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | SCD FICTION BLU 11 DISCS | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | SCD FICTION BLU 11 DISCS | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
In her highly anticipated new novel, Judy Blume, the New York Times # 1 best-selling author of Summer Sisters and of young adult classics such as Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, creates a richly textured and moving story of three generations of families, friends and strangers, whose lives are profoundly changed by unexpected events.
In 1987, Miri Ammerman returns to her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to attend a commemoration of the worst year of her life. Thirty-five years earlier, when Miri was fifteen, and in love for the first time, a succession of airplanes fell from the sky, leaving a community reeling. Against this backdrop of actual events that Blume experienced in the early 1950s, when airline travel was new and exciting and everyone dreamed of going somewhere, she paints a vivid portrait of a particular time and place--Nat King Cole singing "Unforgettable," Elizabeth Taylor haircuts, young (and not-so-young) love, explosive friendships, A-bomb hysteria, rumors of Communist threat. And a young journalist who makes his name reporting tragedy. Through it all, one generation reminds another that life goes on.
In the Unlikely Event is vintage Judy Blume, with all the hallmarks of Judy Blume's unparalleled storytelling, and full of memorable characters who cope with loss, remember the good times and, finally, wonder at the joy that keeps them going.
Early reviewers have already weighed in: "Like many family stories, this one is not without its life-changing secrets and surprises. There is no surprise that the book is smoothly written, and its story compelling. The setting--the early 1950s--is especially well realized through period references and incidents." -- Booklist (starred review) and "In Blume's latest adult novel . . . young and old alike must learn to come to terms with technological disaster and social change. Her novel is characteristically accessible, frequently charming and always deeply human." -- Publishers Weekly
From the Hardcover edition.
Author Notes
Judy Blume was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on February 12, 1938. She received a bachelor's degree in education from New York University in 1961. Her first book, The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, was published in 1969. Her other books include Are You There, God? It's Me Margaret; Then Again, Maybe I Won't; Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing; Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great; and Blubber. Her adult titles include Wifey, Smart Women, Summer Sisters, and In the Unlikely Event. In 1996, she received the American Library Association's Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement and in 2004, she received the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (7)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In 1952, the New Jersey town of Elizabeth is traumatized by three separate plane crashes in the span of one year. Blume's novel explores the events of that tumultuous period through the eyes of 15-year-old Miri, her family, other residents of the town, and relatives of the victims. Narrator McInerney expertly voices the myriad of characters, ranging from small children to teenagers to the elderly, giving each a distinct voice and portraying the conflicting emotions and events, both large and small. In addition to the trauma of the plane crashes, Miri and her friends are going through adolescence, high school, first loves, and plans for college or jobs. Through her narration, McInerney is able to convey all the characters' horror and reaction to the tragedies. She also captures their coming-of-age story, the little joys and sorrows and insecurities of growing up, the sense of small-town life in the 1950s-and the mature perspective of Miri as she returns to her hometown 35 years later for a memorial. This is a thoughtful, insightful tale, well told and well narrated. A Knopf hardcover. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In her first adult novel since Summer Sisters (1998), celebrated children's and young adult author Blume tells the story of three generations of an Elizabeth, New Jersey, family: her protagonist, 15-year-old Miri; Miri's mother, Rusty; and Miri's grandmother, Irene. Their lives and those of their friends are impacted when a plane falls out of the sky over Elizabeth, and, in the course of the next 58 days, two others follow. Miri's friends are sure it's the work of aliens or zombies or, more simply, sabotage. Miri's reporter uncle, Henry, who will make his reputation covering the crashes for the local newspaper, says they're coincidences. But who is to say? In the meantime, Miri's boyfriend, Mason, becomes a hero in the wake of the third crash, but will their relationship survive? Like many family stories, this one is not without its life-changing secrets and surprises. There is no surprise that the book is smoothly written, and its story compelling. The setting the early 1950s is especially well realized through period references and incidents: God Bless America sung by Kate Smith, praying in public schools, reading the new novel Catcher in the Rye, watching Your Hit Parade on TV, and more. With its focus on Miri's coming-of-age, this could have been published as a YA novel, and it will doubtless reach a wide crossover readership. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A new Blume novel will always be big news, and this one will be promoted on a wide scale to all ages.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2015 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
JUDY BLUME ISN'T just revered, she's revolutionary. She has dared to write about so-called taboo topics for children and young adults - racism ("Iggie's House"), bullying ("Blubber"), sex ("Forever...") - and has done it so honestly that her work is both beloved and banned. Now, in her first novel for adults in 17 years, she uses her own young life as source material, revisiting a time when three planes crashed over eight weeks in her hometown, during an indelible period of history - the beginning of the 1950s, just as the glossy suburban dream of picket fences and safe conformity jutted up against unrelenting Cold War paranoia. "In the Unlikely Event" is told in a large chorus of voices, but at the center is Miri Ammerman, a ninth-grade Jewish girl in Elizabeth, N.J., whose life - and community - are derailed by the crashes. She lives with Rusty, her 33-year-old single mother, who refuses to tell Miri the truth about the father who abandoned her. Irene, her Volupté-compact-selling grandmother, is another force in Miri's life, as is Miri's best friend, Natalie Osner, the dentist's well-off daughter with a serious cashmere sweater habit and a yearning for fame. Miri is also busy discovering first love with Mason, an orphan with secrets of his own. Then the planes zoom to earth, and everything changes. Panicked, the community draws together, struggling to find a reason for the disasters. Could it mean something that all three crashes narrowly missed schools? Was this the work of Communists, an A-bomb, or even aliens or sabotage? Was it the fault of Newark Airport, which many push to shut down? No one knows, and no one has seen anything like this before. The dead present themselves as "bodies, still strapped into their seats, hanging from trees like puppets in some kind of sick show." The site of the third crash has an almost "carnival air, with a hawker selling bags of popcorn and families taking their children to see the remains of the devastation." And though the plummeting planes are indeed horrific, Blume is much more interested in the way people themselves crash and burn, or sometimes manage to fly higher than they expected. "Where were you when you heard the news? What were you doing?" people ask, but a more important question might be, What has happened to you since? Natalie transforms, suddenly believing that one of the casualties, a dancer named Ruby, is living through her. Natalie's brother loses the girl he was falling in love with and, with her, his compass in life. A man made a widower by the first crash desperately looks for comfort with Irene. Making sense of the crashes isn't easy, but Miri's beloved uncle Henry does his best to cover it in the local paper, occasionally writing prose so purple - "the plane had broken apart like a swollen cream puff" - that Miri wonders if he did it on purpose: "When something so unimaginable happens you need to find a new way to help people see it." But life goes on. New bonds build, even as old prejudices threaten to rip relationships apart. A woman who works for Dr. Osner must keep her love for her boyfriend secret, because he isn't Greek as she is; Miri worries that Rusty will disapprove of Mason, who isn't Jewish. Still, despite these differences, how could this group not band together after what they all experienced? They know, as Miri later says, in a poem that she writes, "We're still part of a secret club,/One we'd never willingly join. /... We'll always be connected by that winter./Anyone who tells you different is lying." The novel moves with momentum, told in short chapter bursts, newspaper reports and even scripted dialogue. Blume plays with time, fast-forwarding 35 years at both beginning and end to show how these people eventually managed to make sense of what they could. Admittedly, the vast array of characters, who are quickly introduced, can be a little disorienting, and occasionally you might need to flip back pages to remember just who is who. It takes a while before you realize that Blume has threaded these lives together in an essential way and given every one of them importance, even a walk-on character like Longy Zwillman, the local gangster who promotes Las Vegas as the promised land they all need. Blume nails every 1950s detail, from the refinished basements with wet bars and knotty-pine walls to Elizabeth Taylor haircuts and mentions of Bogart and Bacall. The Korean War rages as busy mothers insist that those "Bird's Eye vegetables were a godsend." For Blume's cast, the suburbs begin to lose their shine, but what is there to replace them? Devastating secrets are uncovered, moving love stories play out or fade to black. Blume, whose fiction for adults has the same emotional immediacy as her books for children, makes us feel the pure shock and wonder of living, the ways we get through catastrophe - and the ways we fail. But our connections might save us. "Terrible things can happen in this life but being in love changes everything," one character says. We are all passengers in this world, Blume suggests, fastening our seatbelts, hoping we reach our desired destinations and bracing for what comes next. CAROLINE LEAVITT'S latest novel is "Is This Tomorrow." Was this the work of Communists, an A-bomb, or even aliens or sabotage? Or the fault of Newark Airport?
School Library Journal Review
In the winter of 1951-52, three separate airplanes crashed into Elizabeth, NJ, near Newark Airport. Blume was a young teen at the time, and she revisits the events of those months in her latest novel told in the third person from multiple points of view. The main character, 15-year-old Miri Ammerman, lives in Elizabeth with her single mother, Rusty. Miri's Uncle Henry is a small-town journalist who makes a name for himself writing about the crashes for the local paper. Miri's grandmother Irene keeps the family fed and befriends a man who was widowed in the first crash. These and other protagonists' viewpoints help to build a picture of life in New Jersey in the early 1950s. Although there are many voices, Blume skillfully weaves their stories together so that it is always clear who each character is and what their connections are to one another. Miri experiences first love (with a non-Jewish boy) and begins to learn the truth about her father and his family. Her best friend Natalie, whose family and life Miri has always envied, begins a downward spiral into anorexia and believes that she is hearing messages from a dancer named Ruby who died on the first plane. This is a wonderful picture of a community living their lives while responding to not just one catastrophe but three. VERDICT Fans of Blume will clamor for this, but so, too, will any teen who enjoys a well-written coming-of-age novel that strongly evokes a specific time and place.-Sarah Flowers, formerly of Santa Clara County (CA) Library © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
She is one of the world's most successful authors, selling over 80m books -- but her latest will be her last. She talks to a lifelong fan about love, luck and why thinking like a child saved her life My parents raised me, of course, but it was a different adult who shaped my mental landscape. My imagination, my capacity for empathy, my sense of curiosity and my awareness that, while I was unique, I wasn't alone: others felt the same fears and feelings as me. On top of all that, this woman taught me about menstruation, masturbation, making out and sex, which is a damned sight more than any teacher ever did. I was not the only one she took under her wing: there are millions and millions of us who were shaped by her -- whole generations who grew up under her tutelage -- because this woman is Judy Blume. Blume's achievements can be described in facts and figures: book sales of more than 82m over a 45-year career, awards from everyone from the Library of Congress to the National Book Foundation. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Blubber, Deenie, Tiger Eyes, Forever -- to list her books is to list some of the most popular books ever written for young people. But while these details convey Blume's commercial impact, they don't give a sense of her emotional power. To do that, you need to look to the individual children who read her books and the effect she has on them. I began reading Blume's books when I was seven, starting with Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing and the Superfudge series, about a beleaguered nine-year-old boy, Peter Hatcher, forced to endure the irritations of having a younger brother. It was a scenario that spoke to me intimately. I, too, suffered the indignity of having a younger sibling, my sister Nell, so I turned to the adult who seemed to understand my feelings so clearly. "Wrote a letter to Judy Blume," I wrote in my diary on 28 June 1987. "I think she'll make me feel good." I posted it care of her publisher and waited for her to write back, which I assumed, with the confidence of a child, she would. I was right. Just two weeks later, I received my first proper letter in the post. Dated 6 July 1987, on Blume's personalised stationery, it started as a simple form letter, advising me to talk to a professional and to hang in there. But at the bottom, there was a handwritten note from Blume herself: Hadley -- I think you have a fabulous name! All siblings (sisters & brothers) have feelings like you and Nell. It's normal. It'll be OK. Don't worry. Love, J The letter pleased me so much, I stuck it in my diary. But it was decades before I realised how extraordinary it was that one of the most successful authors ever took the time to write to me. To reach Blume today, I fly to Miami and then take a little plane to Key West, a small island off the southernmost toe of Florida, where chickens roam free and people get around on cheerfully coloured bicycles. Blume had asked me to come a day early, so she and her husband, George Cooper, a writer and former law professor, could take me out to dinner. She also instructed me to call her as soon as I landed, because she was worried how I'd cope with the long journey from London. (To describe this as unusually solicitous behaviour from an interviewee to a hack is like describing Blume as a mildly successful writer.) "I feel terrible about dragging you all this way to this funky place!" apologises the perky voice on the phone, as though I had walked on nails to a war zone. "How are you feeling? You must be so tired! I feel terrible!" Later, she and Cooper drive over to my B&B in their Mini Cooper convertible, to pick me up for supper (they're both tickled that his surname is written on the back of the car). Blume, wearing a T-shirt and three-quarter-length trousers, gets out of the car and gives me a big hug, followed by a pink baseball cap to protect me from the Floridian sun. Her pretty, pixie-like face, framed with a mass of brown curls, shines with warmth. She taught me about menstruation, masturbation and making out -- which is a damned sight more than any teacher ever did Cooper and Blume live in Key West most of the year -- the rest of the time, they're in their apartment in Manhattan or visiting their children around the country (Blume has two from her first marriage, Cooper has one). There is a sweetly flirtatious manner between them, even after 30 years of marriage. Both 77, and trim and spry, they are a testament to the benefits of outdoor, warm-weather living. The day before I arrived, Cooper won a medal in a mini triathlon, which makes Blume clap her hands with pride in the retelling. She does physical exercise almost every day -- including, pleasingly, tap-dancing classes -- and has the easy grace of someone who can touch her toes without much trouble. Cooper, calm and steady to Blume's energetic sparkiness, is an eloquent guide to Key West, but Blume is shifting impatiently in the back seat. "Show her the cinema, George!" she says. "You want to see the cinema?" Cooper asks, turning to me. "You've got to see the cinema!" Blume replies for me. We pull up in front of the beautifully retro Tropic Cinema. "George built this!" she says proudly as we walk in, Cooper's hand fondly on Blume's lower back. Cooper was part of the committee that founded the Tropic just over a decade ago. One of the auditoriums inside is called the George in his honour, and the main atrium is the Rudy and Essie Sussman Lounge, named after Blume's parents. "That's my mother and father!" Blume tells an usher inside, in the lobby, pointing at a black-and-white photo of a couple on the wall. "Oh, right," the usher says, a little nonplussed. "Don't they look terrific?" Blume muses, clutching my arm. *** Judy Blume has been thinking a lot about her parents recently. For the past five years, she's been working on her fourth novel for adults, In The Unlikely Event. Set in her home town, Elizabeth, New Jersey, the novel takes place largely over the course of a few months in 1951-1952, when Blume was 13. Although the characters are fictional, she has incorporated into them various details about her parents: one is a dentist, as her father was, and the "diet doctor" her mother frequented makes an appearance. Today, Blume laughs at her memories of him: "His office was like a candy store! He would put the pills in a paper bag, 16 turquoise, 16 pink, 16 yellow. They gave her terrible diarrhoea." The novel is ostensibly about an extraordinary period when three planes separately crashed into the town, which Blume remembers, although her parents tried to protect her from the worst of it. But it is more fundamentally about life in 1950s America: how men and women, still recovering from the impact of the great wars, were hamstrung by social mores; how young women's lives were governed by a fear of pregnancy; how children tried to make sense of a world shaped by a fear of communism, atomic bombs and war. Her new novel is about life in the 1950s, and how children tried to make sense of a world shaped by fear of atomic bombs "I'd always thought of my teenage years in the 1950s as so bland, but writing this book, I feel completely differently," she says over supper in a restaurant on the beach. "Look at all the stuff that was going on in the world then! This book has been such a fascinating project for me." The book will also be Blume's last novel. "I'm not doing a Philip Roth thing," she says, referring to Roth's announcement of his retirement from writing. "Because I know that I will write -- I think I have to, you know, and I have some ideas about a memoir from birth to 12. But I know I'm not doing this again. I have told the stories I needed to tell." The next morning, we meet at a local restaurant for blueberry pancakes (despite having the proportions of a bird, Blume eats like a pro). Afterwards, we go to the home she shares with Cooper, an extraordinary 1950s build with a magical garden of banyan trees and orchids that seem to grow both in and out of the house. She proudly shows me huge files of research she did for the book, detailing everything from period radio shows to transcripts of survivors of the plane crashes. Like the A-grade student Blume once was, she loved doing the homework. "I'd say to George, 'This researching is the best fun I've ever had!' And he'd say, 'Yes, Judy, but you still have to write it.' And I always struggle with the writing." This seems astonishing coming from a writer who, at her productive peak in the 70s, was publishing two books a year, sometimes three. But Blume never intended to be a writer. As a child, she dreamed of being an actor, cowgirl or detective, just like the eponymous heroine of Starring Sally J Freedman As Herself (1977), which Blume describes as "my most autobiographical book". Like Sally Freedman, Judith Sussman (as Blume was born) grew up in New Jersey in a middle-class Jewish family, an imaginative child desperate to know more about the adult world. "I was so curious, I used to look in the little trash bins in public women's rooms, dying to see blood. And I found it many times. Exciting!" She grins. The family moved to Florida briefly for her older brother's health (he had a serious kidney infection) and, years later, when she and Cooper started coming to Key West, Blume would look up at the starry sky and think happily, "This is the sky I looked on as a child." "I even have the same bicycle!" she laughs, pointing out a bicycle outside, painted as brightly as a child of 10 could ever wish. She has always preferred to write about children than teenagers, she says, because "I think the child I was until 12 was so much more interesting than the teenager I became. As a teenager, you get wrapped up in your friends and sexual stuff, and the imaginative life you had, it just goes. And mine was so rich and fun. Fortunately, I was able to tap back into that later on [through my books] to save my life." When Blume was 21 and a student at New York University, two events happened in the space of five weeks that effectively ended her youth: her father, whom she revered, died suddenly at the age of 54, and she married a lawyer, John Blume. "It's honestly like it was yesterday," she says, referring to her father's death, her voice cracking. "Everything they say a girl should get from her father in terms of total acceptance and love, I got all that from my father. But then I married a man just like my mother -- so phlegmatic." Did it ever occur to her that she could stay single for a time after college? Blume gasps in mock terror: "That is so not the way it was done then." The life of a housewife made her wither inside. She'd dream of being a young woman 'with long swinging straight hair' The Blumes lived in New Jersey and had a daughter, Randy, and a son, Lawrence, two years later. "I loved being pregnant and I loved having children, but I wasn't happy then," she says. The life of a suburban housewife made her wither inside. She would gaze across the river towards New York and dream of being a young woman "with long swinging straight hair", marching for women's rights. ("The neighbours thought I was crazy. The women's movement was slow in coming to suburban New Jersey," she says wryly.) Thwarted in that fantasy, she started to believe she was suffering from various illnesses: "Always exotic ones, of course." She smiles. One day, she decided to write a little story. The One In The Middle Is The Green Kangaroo was published in 1969, followed almost immediately by Iggie's House, Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, Then Again, Maybe I Won't and Freckle Juice, all in the space of two years. Much has been made of Blume's skill at treating important themes in her books for young people: racism in Iggie's House, puberty in Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, teen sex in 1975's Forever, the death of a parent in 1981's Tiger Eyes, which Blume says was subconsciously about the death of her father. But she says she never approaches her books in terms of themes; rather, she looks for "characters and storytelling: that's what interests me, not literariness". This does mean that her adult novels -- Wifey, Smart Women, Summer Sisters, In the Unlikely Event -- while always enjoyable, can feel a little soapy. But when she wrote about, for example, menstruation in Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, she did it because she remembered what it was like to be a little girl who wanted to know about things that grownups wouldn't talk to her about, "and that feeling of being desperate for information -- I remembered it so well. And thank God, because I so needed a creative outlet." What is most striking about Blume's books for children, rereading them as an adult, is how brilliantly she captures the mindset of a young person, whether it's nine-year-old Peter in Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing or 18-year-old Katherine in Forever. To read Blume's books as a child is to feel as if an adult finally understands you; to read them as an adult is to remember exactly how you felt at those ages. It is also remarkable, these days, to read books for young people featuring such resolutely normal characters. When I read Blume's books as a kid, they taught me that a child like me -- wholly devoid of magical powers -- was worthy of being the star of her own story. In the past, Blume has been a little dismissive of the Twilight series, but she says over our breakfast pancakes that she doesn't want to cause a fuss on Twitter. When I raise this, she grows quiet and tries to change the subject. Has she noticed that kids today have a greater interest in superheroes? "Yes, that's true. I now get asked by children, 'What would your super power be?' That never used to happen. I always think, I don't want to answer that question." Like superheroes, fame had a different quality when Blume started writing, and she wasn't aware of any media attention until the late 70s. What did her husband make of her new career? "He really didn't care," she says. "He'd say things like, 'Paper and pencils are cheap, so fine, as long as everything else gets done.' He was a 50s kinda guy, you know." In 1972, Blume wrote It's Not The End Of The World, about a 13-year-old dealing with her parents' divorce, and dedicated it to her husband John. In 1976, they divorced. Does she think the confidence she got from writing that book gave her the confidence to leave? "Yeah. I do," she says quietly. Almost immediately after her divorce, with two teenagers in tow, Blume married for the second time, this time to a physician and journalist. "Ay-yay-yay -- I don't know what I was doing then. I was crazy. I was very lonely. I was very sad. Maybe I was fearful, maybe I was looking for something and I wasn't brave enough to do it on my own, because I didn't even know what it was," she says. The marriage lasted only two years, but in that time she wrote Starring Sally J Freedman and Wifey, her first book aimed at adults, which tells the story of a woman who wants to leave a stultifying suburban marriage. Was she trying to make sense of her own life? Blume sighs. "It's hard for me to self-analyse. I prefer to think, 'Oh, aren't I lucky?'" This determinedly optimistic nature, coupled with her 50s-influenced fear of being single, probably explains how she fell into a relationship with the man who would become her third husband, George Cooper, before the paperwork on her second divorce was done. By this point, Blume was living in Santa Fe and the two were set up by Cooper's ex-wife. They went on a date on Sunday night and by Tuesday Cooper had moved in. "I was always looking for the right relationship, and I liked being married. I thought, 'I know how to do this, I'm good at it!'" she says. "But once you find the right one, you can't imagine how you... I would never jump again. I jumped with George, but I got lucky." They married in 1987, after seven years of living together, and since then Blume has written five books, including her latest -- a remarkable drop in productivity. Whereas once she'd write a book in six weeks, now they take her several years. "I felt so much less pressure when I got happy... and it ruined my career," she says. Working on In The Unlikely Event has been hard on them both: "He misses having me to himself. And, for me, it's hard to be sexy when you're always on a deadline." We break for lunch and order a "Judy" pizza from a local pizzeria, topped with red and yellow peppers, courgettes, basil and spinach, and named in her honour. Of course, the real problem with slowing down in productivity means that Blume is still largely defined by books she wrote 40 years ago, and only occasionally does she show weariness with this, wincing a little when I refer to "Ralph", the name a teenage boy memorably gives his penis in Forever. But in the main, she is a remarkably good sport. We talk a little about her support for Planned Parenthood, the pro-choice organisation, which has resulted in Blume receiving hate mail and requiring a bodyguard for some of her speaking engagements. She never got the long swinging straight hair, but Blume is, finally, very much part of the women's movement. Is she worried about being in the public eye again? She thinks for a moment. "No. No, I'm not. No," she replies, with growing certainty. After lunch, it's time for the photographer to take pictures and, to give herself some energy, Blume puts on some songs from the 50s. One of my last sights of this indefatigable optimist is of her practising her tap-dancing moves next to her brightly coloured bicycle, singing along to Judy Garland's Get Happy. But there is one thing I need to do before leaving Florida. Reaching into my bag, I take out my letter from her, which I have kept for almost 30 years. "Oh look, I wrote back to you!" she says, peering at it. "I didn't always do that, you know." I assumed you wrote back to everyone, I say. "Oh no, definitely not. Certainly not by 1987. There must have been something about your letter that got to me." She looks up and smiles encouragingly: "You must have been quite a little writer back then." Three decades on, Blume still knows how to make her readers feel good. * In The Unlikely Event, by Judy Blume, is published on 4 June by Picador at [pound]16.99. To order a copy for [pound]13.59, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. - Hadley Freeman.
Kirkus Review
A beloved author returns with a novel built around a series of real-life plane crashes in her youth. Within 58 days in the winter of 1951-'52, three aircraft heading into or outbound from Newark Airport crashed in the neighboring town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, taking 116 lives. Blume (Summer Sisters, 1998, etc.), who was a teenager there at the time, has woven a story that mingles facts about the incidents and the victimsamong them, Robert Patterson, secretary of war under Trumanwith the imagined lives of several families of fictional characters. Though it's not always clear where truth ends and imagination begins, the 15-year-old protagonist, Miri Ammerman, is a classic Blume invention. Miri lives with her single mother, Rusty, her grandmother Irene, and her uncle Henry, a young journalist who makes his reputation reporting on the tragedies for the Elizabeth Daily Post. In addition to the crashes, one of which she witnesses firsthand, Miri faces drama with her mom, her best friend, the adviser of her school newspaper, and her first real boyfriend, an Irish kid who lives in an orphanage. Nostalgic details of life in the early '50s abound: from 17-inch Zeniths ("the biggest television Miri had ever seen") to movie-star haircuts ("She looked older, but nothing like Elizabeth Taylor") to popular literature"Steve was reading that new book The Catcher in the Rye. Christina had no idea what the title meant. Some of the girls went on dates to Staten Island, where you could be legally served at 18....The Catcher in the Rye and Ginger Ale." The book begins and ends with a commemorative gathering in 1987, giving us a peek at the characters' lives 35 year later, complete with shoulder pads and The Prince of Tides. Though it doesn't feel much like an adult novel, this book will be welcomed by any Blume fan who can handle three real tragedies and a few four-letter words. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Blume's latest is based on events from her own life and will hold appeal for both young adult and adult readers. It is December 1951 in Elizabeth, NJ, and ninth grader Miri Ammerman lives with her unwed mother, Rusty, and her grandmother Irene. During the winter, three planes crash in Elizabeth, affecting the community in multiple ways. The junior high students speculate about the reasons for the crashes; UFOs and communist sabotage are the most popular. Miri falls in love with an older boy, learns secrets about her parentage, and must deal with her friend Natalie's strange behavior and eating disorder. Newspaper reports and bits of 1950s popular culture such as Elizabeth Taylor haircuts, a 17" Zenith TV, and Nat King Cole lyrics are referenced in this blend of fact and fiction. Kathleen -McInerney brings a young, enthusiastic tone to her narration. VERDICT Recommended for libraries with historic fiction collections and Blume lovers of all ages everywhere.-David Faucheux, Lafayette, LA © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Miri Miri was not happy when Rusty showed up at the Osners' party. And even less happy to see she was wearing her good black dress, her dress shoes and stockings with seams. Then there was the hair. Rita Hayworth hair. To her shoulders. Heads turned when Rusty came into the living room. She waved at Miri but Miri turned away. "What is my mother doing here?" she asked Natalie. "My mother wants to introduce her to Cousin Tewky from Birmingham." "Tewky? What kind of a name is Tewky? " "Some family nickname. He's my mother's first cousin, from the banking side of the family. You know, Purvis Brothers Bank." Miri didn't know. "My mother's from the department store side." Miri didn't know that, either. "You should have warned me," she told Natalie. "How was I supposed to know your mother didn't tell you she was coming?" Corinne greeted Rusty and led her straight to a man, a man who must have been Tewky Purvis, balding, not especially handsome, but not ugly, either, with a mustache. Well, half the men in the room had mustaches, including Dr. O. She couldn't hold that against him. They were talking now, her mother and Tewky Purvis, and laughing, maybe even flirting. Miri didn't like it. She didn't know how grown-ups judged each other, especially how women judged men. It never made sense to her. It's about character , Rusty once told her. Strength, goodness. A sense of humor doesn't hurt, either. She didn't ask how men judged women because she already knew. It was obvious, and Rusty looked glamorous tonight. "That's not all of it," Rusty had once argued. "But you're right--looks are certainly a starting point. Chemistry, too." Miri understood chemistry now. Chemistry turned your legs to jelly and made your insides roll over. If Mason hadn't had to work tonight Miri might not be at the Osners' party. She hoped she'd never have to choose between her best friend and the boy she loved. Since seventh grade, New Year's Eve had been for just the two of them, Natalie and Miri. She didn't think Natalie would have invited Mason. Maybe someday when Natalie was also in love, they'd invite dates to the Osners' party, but not now. Rusty must have thought that Miri would be out with Mason when she accepted Corinne's invitation. Now she'd have to deal with her daughter keeping an eye on her. Rusty She decided to go to the party at the last minute when Irene urged her to get out and enjoy herself. Seeing the worry on Miri's face now, she began to regret her decision. Maybe it had been a mistake to keep the men in her life a secret. Not that there had been many. But she'd never brought a date home. Not one man in fifteen years. She hadn't done a thing to get Miri used to the idea, to the possibility. In all these years, there had been just two serious boyfriends. One of them had been married. She certainly wasn't going to introduce him to her family. She knew from the start he would never leave his wife and children. She knew she wasn't his first affair. Yet she kept seeing him. For five years she saw him every week. If you asked her about him today she wouldn't be able to explain it. Just that she'd been young and she'd enjoyed the attention, the thrill, the sex. The second man was decent and available. He'd proposed after a few months, with a diamond as big as her thumbnail. For a minute she thought she could learn to love him, could be happy with his promise of a big house in the suburbs, a maid to clean and cook, summer camp for Miri. But when it came time to introduce him to the family she couldn't do it. They would see right through her. They would see the truth--she didn't love him, wasn't the least attracted to him and didn't want to marry him, not even for an easier life. Sometimes she wondered about her first love, but not often. A girl gets in trouble, she marries the boy. They wind up hating each other, resenting each other and finally they get a divorce. By then it's taken its toll on both of them and their children. No, she never wanted that, which is why she'd refused to allow her mother to call the Monskys and force Mike to marry her. Maybe she would fall in love again. If and when that happened she would introduce him to Miri. But until then, what was the point? Excerpted from In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
