Judy Blume

The definitive, all-access biography of one of the world’s most beloved literary voices, showcasing a life as triumphant and inspiring as the stories she crafted.

To know the name Judy Blume is to know and love literature. Her influential novels have touched tens of millions of readers. For more than fifty-five years, her work has revolutionised young people’s literature – frank, candid, and unafraid to show humanity’s messier sides.

But Judy Blume was an unlikely literary icon. Judith Marcia Sussman, a Jewish girl from New Jersey, was a restless thirty-year-old stay-at-home mother when her passion for reading suddenly became a talent for writing. What followed was unrivalled creative energy- ten books in just five years that reshaped literature for generations. The emotional core of her beloved books – death, religion, coming-of-age, sexuality, bullying – stems from her own childhood experiences.

In Judy Blume, journalist Mark Oppenheimer crafts a beautiful portrait of the acclaimed author through extensive interviews with Blume and unparalleled access to her papers. Oppenheimer explores Blume’s 1950s upbringing, complicated childhood, varied relationships, sexual experiences, heartache, and enduring legacy as a champion of free speech. He reveals the woman behind the literary empire in all her complex glory – a true gift for anyone who grew up reading these extraordinary books.

Author Biography

Mark Oppenheimer holds a PhD in religious studies from Yale, and has taught at Stanford, Wesleyan, Wellesley, NYU, Boston College, and Yale, where he was the founding director of the Yale Journalism Initiative. From 2010 to 2016, he wrote the ‘Beliefs’ column for The New York Times, and has written for The New Yorker, The Nation, GQ, Slate, and many more. He is the author of five books, most recently, Squirrel Hill- the tree of life synagogue shooting and the soul of a neighborhood. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, four daughters, one son, and two dogs.