Growing up amongst the wreckage
As a teenage girl in the 1970s, reading Judy Blume’s young adult novels was a rite of passage. From Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret to Blubber and Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, Blume’s books remain funny, refreshingly honest and poignant. Generations of voracious readers have gobbled up Blume’s books for younger readers, a true testament to their staying power.
Blume’s most recent novel, In the Unlikely Event, is for adults. But her central character, Miri Ammerman, is a 15-yearold Jewish girl growing up in the 1950s who has the same questions and longings as Blume’s earlier protagonists. More than 40 years later, Blume can still channel her inner adolescent, writing a compelling coming-of-age novel with a skill that draws her readers into Miri’s world with authenticity and deftness.
In the Unlikely Event is set in Elizabeth, N.J. — Blume’s hometown — primarily in 1951 and 1952. These were the early days of commercial aviation, and in one horrific 60-day period, three passenger planes crashed into the town near Newark. The crashes killed 116 people, narrowly missed schools and an orphanage, and took out portions of an apartment block.
At the time, Blume was in eighth grade. She uses the backdrop of the real events to explore, in her novel, the confusion, paranoia and fear that she and her real-life classmates shared: was this a Cold War plot? An alien invasion? The end of the world?
Through a narrative interspersed with striking newspaper articles (some “written” by her fictional character, journalist Henry Ammerman), script-like dialogue amongst teenagers and quotes and lyrics from the time, Blume vividly portrays a series of characters and their daily lives.
She uses the disasters to depict the way the repeated tragedies devastate the intertwined lives of families in Elizabeth, as well as those who lost people or died themselves in the crashes.
There is Ruby, the dancer on her way to Las Vegas, whose death jeopardizes the family her income supported; Ben, the elderly man widowed by the first crash; and Kathy, whose death uproots the life of the boy who shared a kiss with her and was eagerly awaiting her arrival home from college. Blume’s description of the impact of the death of one of the pilots on his mother, who has memorized his flights and his route, is particularly moving.
For Miri, the crashes occur against a backdrop of personal revelations about her absent father and her single mother Rusty’s sanitized version of her conception.
As the story unfolds, Miri and her friends grapple with the real nature of the marriages and lives of idealized two-parent families, as well as the inevitable shocks that growing up delivers. As Miri becomes aware of the all-too human frailties of those she loves, readers will remember the way those epiphanies unfolded in their own lives.
In the Unlikely Event is not a dramatic expose of the Pleasantville-style lives of a 1950s American family. Blume has written a more gentle exploration of events that occurred, in her words, in “a special time and place.”
As an author, she has always tackled topics such as racism, bullying and that iconic hot button, burgeoning teenage sexuality, including masturbation and desire, with the matter-of-fact treatment they deserve. Blume deals with many of the same themes here, as both the adult and teenage characters in the book experience crosscultural love, forbidden relationships and questions of identity.
In the Unlikely Event takes readers into a vanished age — before cellphones, the Internet and social media — where the radio, well-written newspapers stories and word-of-mouth propelled events and spread information. It’s a perfect cottage and beach read for the summer of 2015. Laura Eggertson is an Ottawa-based journalist, writer and editor, and a Judy Blume reader from way back.