The Genius of Judy by Rachelle Bergstein

Author:Rachelle Bergstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers
Published: 2024-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

She was concerned about her reputation, and her mother. She was especially worried about how another divorce would affect her kids. She had hoped to hold out until Randy and Larry went off to college, so at least they’d no longer be living at home when it happened. But she couldn’t do it. “After three-and-a-half very painful years my second husband and I finally divorced,” Blume wrote in Letters to Judy. “We had made a terrible mistake… I don’t think we could have survived two more years together. Finally, I made the decision to take control of my own life.”

But taking control wasn’t easy. Unlike with her first divorce, Judy knew exactly how another marital fissure would destabilize Randy and Larry. They’d never really bonded with Tom and vice versa, so for them, losing him wasn’t such a big deal. However, moving again would be a huge disruption. Although she preferred New York and the kids spent their summers there with their father, she decided to stay in Santa Fe for the time being so they wouldn’t have to switch schools yet again. Everything felt unmanageable and Judy’s guilt, for putting her family in this situation, was like a boulder she carted around, day in and day out. “I think divorce is a tragedy, traumatic and horribly painful for everybody,” she told the Chicago Tribune a few years later, in 1985.

That perspective made its way into Just as Long as We’re Together, a middle grade novel that Blume published in 1987. It covers similar ground as It’s Not the End of the World, but this time, the breakup is messier and it takes more than her friendships to get Stephanie Hirsch, the seventh grader at the heart of the story, to feel better about it. She and her younger brother, Bruce, both experience difficulties as a result of their parents’ separation. Bruce, age ten, suffers from ever-worsening nightmares about nuclear war. Stephanie starts binge eating, which causes bullies in her class to dub her El Chunko. Her self-esteem takes a hit. One night, she looks at herself in the mirror after a bath. “My breasts were growing or else they were just fat. It was hard to tell,” Stephanie observes. “Maybe if I lost weight, I’d lose them, too. My glutes were pretty disgusting. When I jumped up and down they shook. The hair down there, my pubic hair, was growing thicker. It was much darker than the hair on my head.”

The one-two punch of family drama and puberty propels Stephanie into a surly depression. She’s nasty to her father’s new girlfriend, Iris. She gets into fights with her friends. She’s angry with her parents for keeping her and Bruce in the dark about their relationship status. She’s ready to know if they’re breaking up—or not. “I hate not knowing what’s going to happen!” Stephanie yells at her mom after finding out her dad is moving back from Los Angeles, leaving Iris behind and taking an apartment close by, in New York.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.