Blume’s first husband, John Blume, was a lawyer she met as an undergraduate at N.Y.U. Her mother didn’t talk about feelings, but she was a reader, and “she let me read whatever I wanted,” Blume said. She grew up in a Jewish family in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with a dentist father, a homemaker mother, and an older brother. It’s more likely to give you clues to the human mystery-which will, in turn, help you decode your future.īlume, born Judith Sussman in 1938, sometimes avoided Blumian topics with her parents, too. Reading one a little too early isn’t going to mess anyone up. Her books are wise but not preachy, light on their feet, easy to digest. One of the great truisms and paradoxes of the Judy Blume phenomenon is that, for millions of fans, her books performed the role of parents-helping guide kids through coming-of-age milestones like periods, erections, and masturbation-while giving parents and kids the freedom to avoid discussing those things. That old friend is Margaret, yes-but also Blume. The time seems right: generations that grew up with Margaret, having been given the pandemic years to reflect on what aging and childhood are all about, can now safely reunite with an old friend. It’s paced and styled for children of the seventies and eighties, who are welcome to bring any young people who might dig it. The team clicked, and the result is a sensitive, faithful, funny adaptation, starring the wondrous young actor Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret, Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie as her parents, and Kathy Bates as her irrepressible grandmother. Then she got a “wonderful” letter from Kelly Fremon Craig, the director of “The Edge of Seventeen,” whose producer and mentor was James L. Over the years, she’d had some meetings-what she calls “Judy, sweetheart” lunches-that didn’t inspire confidence.

“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” about a girl navigating puberty, friendship, religion, and a new town in suburban New Jersey (“Don’t let New Jersey be too horrible,” she prays), is perhaps the book that’s closest to Blume’s heart, and she’d long told agents that film rights were off the table. They traded their house for a sunny apartment on the beach, and Blume, whose books have sold more than ninety million copies, finally started considering some projects that she’d resisted for decades. Both she and Cooper have survived cancer in recent years, and though they’re careful-“George and I are COVID virgins!”-they’ve come to seize life’s pleasures. On the restaurant’s patio, Blume poured apple juice into her water. “That’s how I feel about all this.” We laughed, and then he drove off. “You know the thing you just said about the tombstone?” he asked.

As Cooper dropped us off at a Mediterranean restaurant, he smirked a little. I told them about an idea I’d had for an epitaph-“ BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME”-and we talked about their spring plans: premières of “Margaret” and a documentary, “Judy Blume Forever” a visit from Blume’s biographer Blume being fêted at an awards luncheon in New York. “Here’s the cemetery with the famous tombstone that says ‘ I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK,’ ” George said, looking pleased. They pointed out landmarks as we drove to breakfast. Cooper, eighty-five, was behind the wheel Blume, also eighty-five, was cheerfully wedged into the back seat. My day with Blume began at 8:45 a.m., when she picked me up in a two-door convertible outside my hotel. That week, her 1970 coming-of-age classic, “ Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” appeared in a small display, in pink paperback, and at the Tropic a poster for its new screen adaptation, with a tastefully nostalgic seventies font, was in a coming-soon display in the lobby. Books & Books has a robust children’s section, with a shelf and a half of Blume’s novels-brisk sellers, which she often signs. Blume co-founded and works at an independent bookstore, Books & Books Key West Cooper founded an independent movie theatre, the Tropic Cinema. They live on the water and walk two miles every morning, with walking sticks, choosing their “A route” or “B route.” They have a favorite source of Key-lime pie and a coterie of friends. Blume and her husband, George Cooper, moved to Key West thirty years ago, and have been doing their best to foster a kind of quotidian paradise, for themselves and the community. Chickens roam free, orchids “grow like weeds,” cats wander in Hemingway’s house, and disco plays out drag-bar windows, all in DeSantis-era Florida. The writer Judy Blume lives in Key West-“an exciting place to live,” Blume told me, in March, when I visited.

House of ashes endings