“There’s another guy, isn’t there?”: Ibid., p. 203.
actually he “screwed [his] way around North Carolina”: Ibid., p. 206.
“I’ll never regret one single thing we did together”: Ibid., p. 208.
Chapter Twelve
Paperbacks
“We’d all whisper and certain pages would fall open”: Telephone interview with Lauren Harrison, October 25, 2022.
“Labeling it an adult book… was our way of saying”: Weidt, Presenting Judy Blume, p. 59.
She told School Library Journal that seeing the book described that way: Roger Sutton, “An Interview with Judy Blume, Forever… Yours,” School Library Journal, June 1996, pp. 25–27.
“Dick told me, ‘Judy Blume is our big author’ ”: PS to RB, May 27, 2022.
“a kind of heroine to the kids who read and re-read her books”: Best Seller List, New York Times, August 15, 1976.
The paper of record’s review of Forever: “Forever,” New York Times, December 28, 1975.
Obviously it’s not a quality book: Review by Regina Minudri, School Library Journal, November 1975, p. 95.
Kirkus was also dismissive: Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 1975. Accessed through the New York Public Library.
with whom Judy would eventually develop a warm relationship: Box 26 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed April 1, 2022, over email.
Pollack did not include Forever in her story: Pamela D. Pollack, “Sex in Children’s Fiction: Freedom to Frighten?,” SIECUS Report 5, no. 5 (May 1977).
“Being Black, I always assumed that Deenie was white”: Telephone interview with Julia Loving, November 8, 2022.
“There was a copy of Forever that was passed around in fifth grade”: LH to RB, October 25, 2022.
Maynard went to the “pretty, mostly white, upper-middle-class community”: Joyce Maynard, “Coming of Age with Judy Blume,” New York Times, December 3, 1978.
“I read that book so many times,” Silverberg said: CS to RB, October 26, 2022.
“I was fourteen and I remember reading [ Forever]”: JZ to RB, May 31, 2022.
Chapter Thirteen
Rebellion
“He had married this little girl, and he was happy that way”: Peter Gorner, “Tempo: The Giddy/Sad, Flighty/Solid Life of Judy Blume,” Chicago Tribune, March 15, 1985, p. D1.
She was holding his hand when he lost consciousness: Lee, Judy Blume’s Story, pp. 58–59.
Before Judy and John told them, Judy had consulted a family counselor: Judy Blume, Letters to Judy, pp. 90–91.
“It was a nice marriage,” Blume later said: Lee, Judy Blume’s Story, p. 73.
“I wasn’t terrible. I was responsible”: Weidt, Presenting Judy Blume, p. 16.
John blamed Fear of Flying: V.C. Chickering, “A Judy Blume Interview from the Bust Archives,” Bust, February 12, 2015, originally published in the 1997 Spring/Summer issue. Accessed online: https://bust.com/tbt-a-very-special-judy-blume-exclusive-from-our-bust-vault/.
“What was marriage anyway?”: Erica Jong, Fear of Flying (Fort Worth, TX: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1973). I worked from the 2003 reprint from New American Library, p. 14.
“Was I going to be just a housewife who wrote in her spare time?”: Ibid., p. 193.
“Leaving Bennett was my first really independent action”: Ibid., p. 390.
“I was afraid of being a woman,” she says: Ibid., p. 407.
“Why should I be disturbed by the sado-masochistic aspects of that relationship”: Sue Kaufman, Diary of a Mad Housewife (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), p. 191.
“Without a cent of my own, without a checking account”: Ibid., p. 272.
in which she has to be the “submissive woman”: Ibid., p. 207.
“Did Lisbeth think she was a mad housewife too?”: Judy Blume, Wifey, (New York: Berkley Books, 1978), p. 79.
“Have you been reading that book again?”: Ibid., p. 188.
“Just getting through the day was a real struggle for me”: Judy Blume, Letters to Judy, p. 92.
“That’s what divorced women on TV always turn out to be—cocktail waitresses”: Judy Blume, It’s Not the End of the World (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Bradbury Press, 1972), p. 101.
“If I divorced him, I’d have to give up the house”: Judy Blume, Wifey, p. 201.
