Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - When Judy Blume Was a Struggling Housewife

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00:00:47.940 Hey all, Joe Piazza here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:54.180 Yes.

00:00:54.740 and today we are going to be under the influence of one of my favorite authors. I mean maybe my

00:01:01.920 favorite author to be honest. I get asked that question a lot and it's tough when you're an

00:01:08.620 author to be asked your favorite authors or your favorite books but one answer has always been

00:01:14.780 very clear for me. It has always been Judy Blume. Judy Blume is the reason that I write books.

00:01:21.620 When I first read her books as a young girl living in suburban Pennsylvania, it was really

00:01:29.100 the first time that I saw myself in books, just an average, regular girl like me with

00:01:36.360 parents who weren't always the best parents or parents who fought sometimes, but still

00:01:42.000 loved each other.

00:01:43.680 And it made me love reading, but then it also made me love writing because it also showed

00:01:51.020 me that characters could be like me, that they didn't have to necessarily be extraordinary,

00:01:59.480 at least not in the ways that the world recognizes people are extraordinary.

00:02:05.320 Today, I'm talking to the author Rochelle Bergstein. She's just written the new book,

00:02:12.440 The Genius of Judy, How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us. And it digs into

00:02:19.480 how Judy changed our lives. But first, it talks about how Judy changed her own life. Because 0.88

00:02:26.160 before Judy Bloom was Judy fucking Bloom, she was a mother of two and a housewife searching for 0.98

00:02:32.340 purpose outside of her home in the 1960s. She wanted more. And we know a lot about women who 1.00

00:02:40.660 want more on this podcast. I love this story about Judy. I think it has so much to teach us

00:02:47.180 about life, about being a woman, about being an ambitious woman,

00:02:51.280 and about how hard it can be to actually change our lives.

00:02:56.740 Okay, so I am obsessed with this book because I'm obsessed with Judy Blume. For me, Judy Blume is

00:03:04.900 like my er-influencer. When I get asked, and I get asked a lot who my favorite author is,

00:03:11.900 It is always Ms. Bloom. She is the woman who inspired me to start writing because I think that her book showed me that you could write about just a regular person, a regular girl living in suburban New Jersey. And I have so many questions for you about Dame Judy. But I want to hear a little bit about what inspired you to write this book.

00:03:38.280 well there's a selfish element when you're writing anything right you're like who do i want to spend

00:03:45.520 time with for the next few years because it does take time and i like you loved judy bloom so much

00:03:53.400 growing up and i thought it would be incredible to spend a few years rereading her work learning

00:04:00.060 more about her um i have an eight-year-old son and i thought how cool it would be to read some

00:04:06.020 of these books with him. But the deeper question I was pursuing when I started writing this

00:04:12.580 book was, why is it that people like you, so many women out there, recall Judy Blume

00:04:20.860 with such reverence? She had other contemporaries who were writing good children's books, but

00:04:26.620 you really don't hear writers like yourself say, I wanted to become a writer because of

00:04:32.360 Norma Klein, because of Lois Lowry, because of Betty Miles. So what is it about Judy

00:04:37.420 that makes her work so special to people? I mean, that's an amazing question. And I don't

00:04:44.240 actually know the answer. I'm so curious if you figured out the answer when you were writing this.

00:04:49.360 You know, I'm very excited about this book. I'm very excited for everyone to read it. When we

00:04:57.080 were finishing up the Wilder podcast about the legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder, we had bandied

00:05:02.160 about the idea of a Judy podcast as well, examining the life and times of her. And

00:05:09.460 before we get into the particular genius of Judy, I want to talk about her as a mother who reinvented

00:05:17.880 herself. Because it's something we talk about so much on this show. And I think a lot of people

00:05:24.200 don't know that story. So I kind of want to go back to the beginning about how Judy Blume became

00:05:29.240 Judy Blume. Yeah. And this was a big part of my understanding of her as well. This was something

00:05:34.380 I didn't know about her, which was that Judy Blume was raised in a typical middle-class 1950s world.

00:05:42.460 And even though she was educated, she went to college, she got a degree in education from NYU.

00:05:50.020 She was never expected to use that degree. You know, the pinnacle of success for a woman like

00:05:56.160 Judy Blume was exactly what she got, which was she got engaged before she finished college. 0.98

00:06:02.080 She was pregnant before she got her diploma. And by her mid-twenties, she lived in a nice house 1.00

00:06:07.100 in suburban New Jersey with a successful husband and she had two kids. And that was supposed to be

00:06:14.600 that for her. That was supposed to be her story, that she would invest herself in her children.

00:06:19.300 She would go to the club and play golf with her husband. She would make him dinner. She would give 0.62

00:06:23.340 him a good home and we never would have known the name judy bloom right but she was unhappy

00:06:29.780 and like so many women in the 1960s she realized that she had been told a story a fairy tale about

00:06:38.220 where her life should go and um but once that fairy tale came true for her she was like

00:06:43.400 well what now i was a very creative child i did so much judy she told herself stories she did plays

00:06:51.320 She worked on the school newspaper and all of that went away when she became a mom.

00:06:56.280 Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. And for so many women. Right. Yes. Because they were told, OK, this is the pinnacle of success for you.

00:07:05.480 And now that's it. There's there's not not much else you can do.

00:07:09.960 And a lot of women didn't or they felt trapped or they didn't know what to do next. 1.00

00:07:14.400 What did Judy do? Well, what's funny is that she didn't start writing right away.

00:07:20.620 It was like she knew somehow deep inside her she needed a creative outlet.

00:07:24.860 So she tried a bunch of things.

00:07:26.660 She would hum along to the radio and think, like, maybe I'll write pop song.

00:07:32.620 But she quickly, like, moved that idea aside because she was like, I'm not talented at that.

00:07:37.780 She started crafting.

00:07:39.560 She actually made pennants for children's bedrooms with felt that she sold in Bloomingdale's for a very brief time.

00:07:46.140 and maybe that would have been her legacy except she developed an allergy to the fabric glue that

00:07:50.800 she was using so she stopped doing that and then like so many of us who are writers and parents

00:07:57.220 he was reading her kids children's books and she thought to herself like maybe i could do this

00:08:02.200 um in one interview she says like she saw the name dr seuss and she was like her maiden name

00:08:08.640 was sussman and she was like well i could be dr sus right so she starts experimenting with

00:08:13.860 children's books and actually drawing little pictures and things. And writing was where

00:08:21.620 she found real pleasure and eventually real success. I love that she tried so many different

00:08:29.240 things because I think we often think that if we're going to pivot to something, it has to be

00:08:35.180 a success right away. That we have to know exactly what we're going to do and how we're going to do

00:08:41.800 it and that's not the case i mean so much of life is trial and error and you know had had judy not

00:08:50.520 had a strange allergy to new crafting products we may never have had are you there god it's me

00:08:58.180 margaret totally and i think the other misperception that i was excited to learn was that judy because

00:09:07.340 like when you're my age i'm in my early 40s like you think that judy bloom probably just emerged

00:09:14.020 as this incredible writer that she wants that she eventually became but that's not the case either 0.91

00:09:18.860 she um he practiced he wasn't great in the beginning she took a class called writing for

00:09:25.000 children and young adults at nyu her alma mater where she experimented with a lot of different

00:09:30.780 forms she wrote fantasy she wrote in first person she wrote in third person and she had a teacher

00:09:35.480 there who pinpointed Judy's particular talent, which was writing realistic fiction. So that's

00:09:42.720 where she started going. But she would write short stories and submit them to parenting

00:09:50.580 magazines. She wrote manuscripts that she sent off herself to publishers, and she was rejected

00:09:56.560 by every major publisher. I mean, Judy was not an overnight success the way we think she might

00:10:01.600 have been. And that's another detail that I loved reading about because I also think that,

00:10:09.720 you know, when we look at the authors, we love, we're like, we love them. They must like,

00:10:14.380 obviously publishing must have as well. And I don't think we hear nearly enough of the stories

00:10:20.760 about the failures and things not going right. I try to be really honest. When I talk about the

00:10:27.260 Sicilian inheritance, you know, the book of the summer, the greatest book anyone's going to read

00:10:31.140 in the next six months besides yours, of course. Thank you. Fiction. Fiction. Yeah. And it was

00:10:37.680 rejected by many, many publishers who said, oh, and this was after I thought I was already a

00:10:43.080 successful writer. I'm like, I've been a Good Morning America book club pick. But there were

00:10:47.000 publishers who said, oh, you don't write suspense and thriller or historical fiction. And we don't

00:10:51.520 know what to do with this book or you. And it was, you know, really demoralizing. And then it found

00:11:00.260 it's home in with our amazing editor Maya Ziv and my publisher but it was and and has now sold

00:11:08.460 50,000 copies as of this morning we're at 50,000 oh my god congratulations thank you thank you

00:11:13.880 because I mean as we've talked about before I have no ego in this but numbers matter for getting to

00:11:18.900 do my job for the rest of my my my life and yes um I I think that I wanted it more I care about 0.99

00:11:28.520 it more because of those rejections, but they still fucking sucked. Okay. Like they sucked and 0.99

00:11:32.840 it hurt and it was hard. And I do think that we need to talk more about, you know, when we don't 0.97

00:11:39.380 have the success that we think we're going to get. So it's, it's, it's so interesting to me that,

00:11:43.440 yeah, Judy did not just come fully formed in this way that she, to be the writer that,

00:11:49.400 that we remember her as. And as you're saying, I mean, I think so much of this career is scraping

00:11:54.740 yourself off the floor, whether it's, you know, dealing with a rejected book or book proposal or

00:12:00.240 getting a bad review, you know, so much of it is just persisting and believing in yourself. And

00:12:04.040 that's what Judy did. You know, she says that the first time she got a rejection letter in the mail,

00:12:09.480 she hid in the closet and cried somewhere. Kids didn't see her, but

00:12:12.940 he developed a thicker skin, you know, like all of us, he realized that this is part of the job

00:12:18.680 and sticking with it is part of what makes a person successful. So he did ultimately find

00:12:24.480 her publishing house um it's a kind of incredible unconventional story which is that she responded

00:12:31.380 to an ad for a new publisher that was starting that was interested in books for children 8 through

00:12:39.220 12 that were realistic and sort of like a new style of writing for kids so she sent in the

00:12:47.640 manuscript for what would be eventually come become her first book iggy's house and um she found

00:12:53.520 an incredible editor named dick jackson with whom she developed an incredible partnership um reading

00:13:01.840 about their work together was so amazing and kind of like this time capsule of a publishing

00:13:08.300 moment that since passed which is that you know he would invite her to his office and they would

00:13:15.060 open the window and let the breeze come in and they'd spend hours pouring over her drafts with

00:13:19.220 pencil and making notes together. I mean, like, I don't know about you, but that doesn't happen to

00:13:24.120 me. That's not a thing that editors really have time for anymore. But no, no, they don't. They

00:13:30.000 don't. It was really amazing to read about this like bygone day in publishing when editors and

00:13:36.460 writers could have this, this wonderful synergy and time to explore that.

00:13:45.060 Yeah, I mean, it's magical. It does not happen often. I mean, I've been very lucky. I've had editors who've done nothing to my manuscript, literally nothing. And then I was blessed to get to work with Christine Pride, who edited me at Simon & Schuster and then became my co-writer.

00:14:02.120 uh and now maya maya ziv um who we we just finished uh uh another book deal uh together

00:14:11.380 and we're gonna talk today about plans and she's wonderful and we spend a lot of time together

00:14:15.180 but i don't think that's the case for many writers right now and i love that judy had this and i love

00:14:22.180 that it was a man too um nurturing a woman author because i mean i think all the time about

00:14:29.500 the importance of good supportive men in our lives and my son my son is reading all of the

00:14:36.940 Judy Blume books my husband read all of the Judy Blume books uh and I think they're not just for

00:14:42.500 girls and I like they build a lot of empathy for boys I want to dig into that a little more

00:14:50.160 after we take a quick break

00:14:51.500 I want to date with Rawls, Carty says

00:14:58.200 Rawls? Rocker asks

00:15:00.200 This is the love story of real hinge couple Carty and Rocker

00:15:04.400 Written and read by me, Nicola Dynan

00:15:07.060 Listen to the free audiobook now

00:15:09.880 Before you knew what a stock was

00:15:14.120 You traded snacks, cards, turns

00:15:17.300 You knew what something was worth

00:15:19.500 Because you felt it

00:15:21.000 that instinct to trade didn't disappear it just grew up td easy trade taps into that instinct

00:15:27.660 so you can build something real for the future with no minimums no monthly fees and 100 free

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00:15:41.960 okay we are back there's so many things that i i want to ask you but one of the things i want to

00:15:52.280 talk about is gender and these books and they're they were books written i think they were written

00:15:59.760 for everyone they weren't just written for young girls right no they were written for everyone i

00:16:05.160 mean judy's most famous books have female protagonists i think that's true when we think

00:16:10.940 about are you there god it's me margaret when we think about beanie um but judy also wrote many

00:16:16.300 books with male protagonists after are you there god it's me margaret came out she wrote a book

00:16:20.960 called then again maybe i won't which is kind of the male answer to margaret it's a young guy um

00:16:29.320 going through puberty he you know reads dirty passages and books and he carries a raincoat to

00:16:37.360 school in case he gets a boner i mean like judy went there with this book um the fudge books

00:16:43.800 obviously star brothers and i read those books with my son as part of the research i mean i read

00:16:49.300 those books growing up and i remember reading super fudge and sitting in my bedroom and laughing

00:16:54.100 out loud and thinking like oh my god this book is making me actually like burst and i read them

00:17:00.400 with my son and the same parts of super fudge that used to make me laugh were making him laugh

00:17:04.900 which was just like a really joyful experience. Same, same. Yeah. No, I recently I was down in

00:17:11.280 Key West at Judy's bookstore at Books and Books. Amazing. Oh, yeah. No, it was it was like an

00:17:17.780 amazing, also pathetic fangirl moment because I've met so many celebrities in my job and I don't 0.96

00:17:24.600 fangirl. I'm just like nothing. Right. I'm like, yes, this is work. I interview people. No, I went 0.89

00:17:29.760 a little little crazy with judy and she had uh it was before sicilian came out but she had um

00:17:35.960 we are not like them and you were always mine uh in the window of her bookstore and i was like 0.93

00:17:40.720 this is it drop the fucking mic i'm done uh but right i just i was just gushy and weird like it 0.95

00:17:46.540 was i was i could not contain myself and she signed all the fudge books for my kid oh my god 0.98

00:17:52.500 that's amazing yeah i mean i think judy's used to that behavior like she's talked about people

00:17:57.340 meeting her and just like immediately bursting into tears but you know this is exactly what i

00:18:01.660 was looking to explore in my book like what the hell is that right what the hell what the hell

00:18:08.240 is that yeah what the hell do you think it is i mean so i think a big part of it is that she dared

00:18:15.580 to go there in her books and by that i mean she talked about these things that nobody was talking 0.98

00:18:20.640 to kids about at the time so puberty wet dream menstruation masturbation losing your virginity 0.85

00:18:30.380 and she did it in this incredibly non-judgmental way that made people feel made kids feel normal

00:18:35.780 and I think she's lodged herself in so much of our consciousness as growing people you know

00:18:46.500 Like so many people have said to me, Judy Blume was like a surrogate parent to me. I went to her archives at Yale for this project, and there are just thousands of letters written to her from kids telling her these really deep, dark secrets and saying, you know, I feel like I can't talk to anybody else about this.

00:19:06.160 though Judy became kind of this again this like surrogate parent for all of us which I think is

00:19:13.000 part of the reason we have such an emotional reaction when we think about her you know like

00:19:16.960 she's this wonderfully positive adult influence for so many people and so many people for whom

00:19:23.840 like their parents disappointed them or adult teachers in school disappointed them Judy seemed

00:19:29.320 like she was always there yeah no it's true it's true or also I mean they didn't have to disappoint

00:19:36.080 in a huge way but you know grown-ups I think for a long time didn't know how to explain things to

00:19:43.500 kids or didn't want to talk about certain things and I think Judy always went there and I mean

00:19:51.260 the biggest thing for me is her characters were just regular kids they're right I mean I was in

00:19:57.740 suburban Pennsylvania and they were they were kids just like me and the fudge books were the

00:20:04.740 ones where they seemed the fanciest because they lived in manhattan yes they lived in an apartment

00:20:08.940 building with an elevator and a doorman yes so so freaking fancy to me so fancy um yes but every

00:20:18.100 but everyone else um you know in dini in blubber in just as long as we are together was like my

00:20:26.560 real jam for a long time that was my that's my sentimental favorite um same and then some are

00:20:34.720 Sisters. I mean, and then like I got into the Summer Sisters, which felt like the sexiest thing

00:20:38.660 I'd ever read. Summer Sisters. I mean, her adult books really, they hold nothing back, which is

00:20:44.700 incredible. I mean, that was really brave of her. You know, she wrote a book called Wifey in 1978,

00:20:50.200 which is about a housewife in suburban New Jersey who realizes she's fed up with the car lines and 0.90

00:21:00.480 the country club and the casual suburban racism and her husband's boring missionary sex and she 0.97

00:21:08.180 goes on this like sexual adventure and she starts sleeping around including with her brother-in-law 0.98

00:21:13.320 which is so weird because he's also her gynecologist but judy didn't hold back and um

00:21:19.840 with that book which was her first book for adults her publisher wanted her they were worried they

00:21:27.180 were like you know is putting the name judy bloom on a book like this going to bite into her child's

00:21:34.560 fan base and people criticized her saying you know how could she write a book like this when kids see

00:21:39.860 her name and get so excited and she just did she said you know kids will pick up this book and

00:21:45.400 immediately realize it's not for them and they'll move on he was never afraid of the criticism

00:21:50.920 yeah no which i think is i mean such a testament to how publishing works today too it's like

00:21:56.940 you can't write this kind of book this isn't what you write I'm like people it will either be for

00:22:00.880 people or it will not yes it's good is it good it's not right is it enjoyable is it good or not

00:22:06.080 it's enjoyable or not yes yes um you know I've actually never read wifey which seems crazy yeah

00:22:13.200 um I kind of feel like maybe maybe you and I should do like a bonus episode where I read it

00:22:19.440 and then like we just like do like a little mini book club between the two of us that would be

00:22:23.600 amazing i describe it in my book as judy's fear of flying i mean it's very similar in its intention

00:22:29.900 it's a little bit more um plot driven than fear of flying but it's like it's a similar

00:22:34.700 second wave woman trying to find herself through sex and right um it's it's such a fun book

00:22:43.760 um all right done done i'm just i'm going on the i'm i'm going on my favorite independent

00:22:49.760 bookstore's website right now because i don't order from amazon although i will tell everyone

00:22:54.280 sicilian inheritance is on sale on amazon this week so if you want it just do it there but anyway

00:22:58.540 yes buy the book wherever you'd like to um and and same same with your book buy buy it in all

00:23:06.720 of the places by nine uh but i i will say i'm gonna go to bluebird and order wifey right now

00:23:11.860 and then do our do our little little joint book club uh what did your what did your son think of

00:23:19.580 the books. You said he was laughing. He loved them. It was so much fun. He thought Fudge was

00:23:26.660 hilarious and annoying and all the things that he is. I mean, that was so incredible for me to watch

00:23:33.100 because these books hold up. That's the other thing. The first book I read of Judy's when I

00:23:39.540 decided I wanted to do this project was Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, which was written

00:23:43.460 in it published in 1970s and it blew my mind how much it feels relevant today you know yes there

00:23:52.940 are like funny little 1970s details like a cool name for a cool fancy name is Mavis you know but

00:24:02.460 but it just feels so true to the girlhood experience even now I mean like you could

00:24:11.740 have cell phones or not and it would still feel just like it cut to the center of what it's like

00:24:17.540 to be a girl and isn't that amazing so amazing so amazing are are there any books that don't hold up

00:24:24.300 i mean i think some are better than others you know i'm trying to think if there was one that

00:24:34.120 i read that i felt like ah this is a little dated nothing's like popping out um yeah because some of

00:24:42.480 the the themes that she wrote about are still so relevant like i'm thinking of it's not the end of

00:24:48.300 the world which is one of her it's not quite as iconic as a margaret right but it's a book that

00:24:54.400 she wrote about a family um where the parents are getting divorced and um the daughter named karen

00:25:03.800 is really angry and she starts acting out and um her mom wants to you know find herself and get a

00:25:13.040 job she talks about maybe going back to school and this is like incredibly annoying for you know

00:25:19.300 11 year old Karen right she just wants her family to be together for her there was nothing wrong

00:25:24.420 with the fact that her dad went off to work and then her mom made cakes you know but yes mom 0.68

00:25:30.960 wants something more. And I think despite the fact that that was, you know, a particularly

00:25:36.660 early 1970s problem, it's still a problem, right? Mom wants more. Kids want their families to be

00:25:45.960 together, right? But sometimes it doesn't work out and kids have to figure out how to deal with

00:25:52.200 that. Like these issues are still relevant today. We haven't figured them out. We have not figured

00:25:57.780 them out. We sure haven't. We sure haven't. Okay, we're going to take one more quick break. And when

00:26:01.740 we get back, I want to talk about Judy Blume's books getting banned and how she's dealt with

00:26:07.140 that. And why do you think she is one of the most banned authors of all time?

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00:27:08.100 Okay, we are back. Now, I want to talk about banned books. I was actually at a library

00:27:15.720 yesterday in the Poconos. We're in, you know, we're in an area that has a lot of resort

00:27:23.340 communities, but is also very middle class, very blue collar. They have a wonderful,

00:27:29.180 wonderful library here. And I was doing a talk there and they told me that, you know,

00:27:34.840 people come in on a regular basis and say, do you carry banned books? And if there's any you're

00:27:40.460 missing let me buy more for you the opposite of what the librarian actually thought she would be

00:27:46.780 hearing in this area which ones of judy's books have been banned so many of them um margaret's

00:27:55.880 been banned for its discussion of menstruation um forever was banned probably the most frequently

00:28:02.080 because it shows teenagers falling in love and having sex and not experiencing any dire

00:28:08.420 consequences which was huge at the time um it's not the end of the world has been banned which is

00:28:14.560 surprising to me but i think it has to do with showing divorce in a way that it doesn't totally

00:28:20.440 destroy people's lives or destroy the woman destroy the woman's life yes exactly um exactly

00:28:26.640 blubber has been banned um because it shows bullying without again any moralist moralizing 0.99

00:28:34.480 at the end any serious consequences for the bullies um and it also uses the word bitch

00:28:39.220 um i think those are the four big ones that get banned but yeah so what's really interesting is

00:28:46.660 that judy bloom published all of those books in the 1970s um without much of a problem i mean

00:28:54.700 people didn't take issue with the books she she donated three copies of are you there god it's

00:29:02.140 me, Margaret, to her children's elementary school in New Jersey. And her principal didn't feel

00:29:06.720 comfortable having them in the school library because of the discussion of menstruation. But

00:29:11.300 it kind of ended there. And then all of a sudden, you know, this big conservative wave moves through

00:29:16.880 this country, culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan. And suddenly, Judy's books have

00:29:23.820 a huge target on them. Organizations like the Moral Majority started letter writing campaigns,

00:29:31.300 they invaded school boards they tried to get her books out of schools um phyllis shaffley who 0.99

00:29:37.640 started the eagle forum she circulated a pamphlet called how to rid your schools and libraries of

00:29:43.580 jitty broom books oh my gosh wow so she became like the figurehead of this issue of you know

00:29:51.020 books that were inappropriate quote unquote for children um she persevered obviously you know we

00:29:57.860 talk about her very positively today. But we're seeing this same kind of conservative moment in

00:30:04.360 our country where books are being weaponized again. And it's not exactly the same. It's actually

00:30:11.120 worse because at the time when Judy's books were being targeted, the momentum was really coming

00:30:17.800 from conservative grassroots organizations. Now that's still true. You know, we're seeing groups

00:30:23.200 like Moms for Liberty come out against books. But we're also seeing politicians do it. And we're 0.98

00:30:29.000 seeing politicians try to put laws on the book that ban books from schools and libraries. We're

00:30:33.740 seeing in Project 2025, language for librarians being imprisoned, for school teachers being

00:30:41.180 arrested for introducing certain materials to kids. So it's much scarier now. The rhetoric has

00:30:48.440 gotten really elevated and you know we have a problem in this country that readers are going

00:30:54.280 to have to fight back against how has judy dealt with all of this so judy was really i mean she was

00:31:04.300 really despondent right it i think she was really blindsided at first by what happened to her um she

00:31:09.980 had gone from a popular children's author who sometimes people criticized for being her books

00:31:16.860 being junkie or not literary or whatever all of a sudden she's you know the poster child for books

00:31:23.080 that are bad for kids and um at first she didn't know what to do she was terribly depressed about

00:31:28.700 it but she ended up joining up with an organization that still exists called the national coalition

00:31:33.780 against censorship and they had a playbook for fighting back which involved you know sending

00:31:38.700 authors to school boards where the meetings were happening she um kids and teachers would circulate

00:31:46.100 petitions in their schools to fight back against potential bans. And I mean, this is still the way

00:31:52.840 that we can get these books in kids' hands, right? Like, we all need to organize to make sure that

00:32:01.700 books aren't taken away from children. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. Did you get to

00:32:10.160 talk to Judy for this book? How much time did you get to spend with her? I didn't. Unfortunately,

00:32:15.380 she was unable to participate but i spent time in her archives like i said at yale which were

00:32:20.680 amazing you know so much historical material that she saved that i got to go through um i read every

00:32:29.760 single interview with her that i could get my hands on i watched interviews on youtube so i feel

00:32:33.920 like i spent time with her but no i did not personally spend time with her yeah no i mean

00:32:38.360 that makes sense judy's schedule is really really tough right now because we had reached out when

00:32:42.000 we were talking about working on the podcast uh and one of the reasons we didn't end up

00:32:46.640 doing a podcast uh is because we it was going to be so tough to schedule time with her

00:32:52.160 right now she's 86 years old you know she has to be cautious with her time

00:32:56.360 she has to be cautious of her time uh well you did you did a brilliant job i mean it feels

00:33:01.320 it feels like you were right there with her as as you as you go through the many many stages

00:33:08.100 of Judy's life thank you so much is there an anecdote or story from the book that you personally

00:33:14.800 love yeah actually I found this really inspiring as a writer so Judy had gotten accustomed to

00:33:22.740 getting bad reviews you know people again they would critics would say she wasn't literary that

00:33:29.380 was like the big comment about her writing that it was too simple someone once described it as like

00:33:36.020 a grocery list like the um she was not held as part of like the literary pantheon and um and

00:33:46.520 she was used to it you know she would doodle curse words on her reviews in red pen which i

00:33:51.440 think is so cute and funny and relatable oh my god i love that yeah but there was one review

00:33:56.920 in particular for the book starring sally j friedman as herself and sally j friedman was um

00:34:01.980 i love that book so much it's so amazing and it's judy's most autobiographical novels she um she

00:34:08.700 took a lot of her own life and her own experiences and put them into that book and she got a review

00:34:15.300 from a very respected book reviewer um that among other things like the reviewer panned it and she

00:34:21.840 she called the book like disgusting and judy was so upset and she was in a rough place in her life

00:34:32.560 she was on the cusp of her second divorce and she was living in new mexico a place she never

00:34:36.860 really meant to be and um he read this review and she took her typewriter outside and she

00:34:44.600 thought about throwing it over the side of the hill that she lived on and smashing it

00:34:49.180 and like how incredibly relatable is that as a writer right you have these moments where you're

00:34:54.420 like that's it i'm i'm turning it in i'm turning it in i'm i'm a garbage talent and i'm just i'm

00:35:03.180 gonna get a job you know at my local bookstore and that's it i'm done and you know and then

00:35:11.520 something inside of her stopped her and she turned around and she went back inside the house

00:35:15.220 and she actually wrote a letter to this critic which is the only critic she ever personally

00:35:20.620 approached and said you know how could you say this book turned your stomach like i don't

00:35:25.880 understand this is a book about a creative 11 year old girl who's uprooted she's living in miami

00:35:32.180 she's making sense of um world war ii right she's growing up on the cusp of world war ii

00:35:38.760 or the shadow of world war ii and she's trying to make sense of everything she's heard about it

00:35:42.880 and the critic wrote her back and said you know i really didn't like um i'm a big fan of yours

00:35:51.680 i don't think this is your best work and i stand by that but the reason i said it was disgusting

00:35:56.760 was because there's a scene in which the family orders chinese food and finds a cockroach in the

00:36:02.000 chow mein and it was that one little thing it was this one little detail that the critic said it

00:36:09.620 made her like almost lose her lunch but that nearly ended judy bloom's career in her tracks

00:36:15.240 right so i thought that was just an incredible story like that judy had the gumption to reach

00:36:22.320 out and say you know why why would you pan my book like this and that the reviewer had a reason 0.79

00:36:29.120 right um really a really dumb reason a really dumb reason and something that kids would probably 0.96

00:36:36.280 find funny right again it's for the children it's kids kids think a bug in your chinese food is 0.88

00:36:42.680 probably hilarious right so um so yeah we almost lost judy we almost lost the rest of her catalog

00:36:51.620 because one one critic was really mean when judy was having a bad day oh god wow

00:36:58.740 i'm gonna leave people with with a cockroach in their chow mein

00:37:02.980 that just like makes me want more of the genius of judy how judy bloom rewrote childhood for all 0.83

00:37:09.720 of us which came out today and is now available freaking everywhere in all of the places all book

00:37:16.860 sales matter i love an audiobook um i love an ebook and uh i also love a hardcover i love nine

00:37:23.680 hard hardcovers so you know go go get this for all of the judy fans in your life uh and i think

00:37:31.040 It's also a great book club book because one of the things I was thinking when I was reading

00:37:34.760 it is it would be really fun to read this and then also choose a Judy book to reread

00:37:40.260 with this club.

00:37:41.440 Absolutely.

00:37:43.440 Yeah, I recently, you know, I recently listened to Sally J. Friedman and Judy reads a lot

00:37:48.400 of her audio books and I think she read that one and I listened to it when I was knocked 0.92

00:37:53.600 out with hand, foot and mouth from my disgusting children. 0.90

00:37:57.940 that hand foot and mouth is that it's one of the things they don't warn you about they should 0.98

00:38:04.060 they they should use that in in like birth control and condom advertisements they're like you should

00:38:10.340 you should you know protect yourself from a future of hand foot and mouth right now because it was

00:38:15.680 terrible and it's not right not right it's not right um i listened to sally and the listening

00:38:23.120 to it was really nice it was just it was like someone was reading me a bedtime story

00:38:27.360 i love an audiobook for sure and um you know i think i don't i haven't done a lot of children's

00:38:34.460 audiobooks but that does sound so delightful just commenting and wonderful listening to judy is

00:38:40.720 really nice it's really really nice um all right we'll tell everyone where they can find you can

00:38:45.360 people see you in person yes so if you're in new york i'm doing an event at books are magic in

00:38:52.840 brooklyn heights on july 29th which is a monday so i would love love love to see you there um

00:38:59.240 more information can be found on my website which is www.rochellebergstein.com um i'm very active on

00:39:07.300 instagram these days because as writers we need to be so you can find me at rochelle wb and i would

00:39:14.840 love to hear from you if you're reading this book please tell me what you think of it

00:39:17.920 yay thank you so much for coming on today thank you so much for having me joe hail judy yes oh

00:39:26.300 i i have one last funny um judy anecdote when i was going back and forth with judy's team about

00:39:33.100 doing this potential podcast i said something like you know judy's a national treasure she

00:39:38.140 should be on a stamp and someone from her team was like you uh have to be dead to be on a stamp

00:39:42.620 so let's not wish death on judy that's hilarious and for out but but eventually eventually i hope

00:39:51.060 she's on a stamp because that would be really but not nuts no time soon no time no time soon

00:39:56.260 but eventually yes yes in the very far far future distant future because we can't handle that right

00:40:03.440 now world's too crazy not not after richard simmons and shannon doherty okay no no no more

00:40:12.000 no more no more please oh my god ross week last week ross ross week last week oh my god okay all

00:40:21.960 right let's not talk about it anymore because we can't put these things out in the universe

00:40:24.900 no more no more okay good okay okay all right bye guys

00:40:42.000 Thank you.

00:41:12.000 No Ordinary Love

00:41:42.000 The audiobook's out now. Give it a listen.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - July 18, 2024

When Judy Blume Was a Struggling Housewife

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