Before her seminal novel Forever was published in 1975, books in which teenage girls had sex invariably served as cautionary tales, ending with them becoming pregnant and their lives being ruined, or having botched abortions which resulted in their death. Blume’s daughter, Randy, asked her if she could write a story ‘about a couple of nice kids who fall in love and do it and nobody has to die,’ she recalls. ‘I thought YES, I should write that.’
The result is a totally realistic, utterly unpreachy love story, in which Blume depicts Katherine’s first sexual experiences as initially painful, then highly enjoyable. Ever aware of her responsibilities to her audience, she sends Katherine to a family planning clinic to get contraception. And it feels modern in its feminism: Katherine is a strong-minded young woman who doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to.
It features other weighty issues, too, including a teenage boy struggling to work out his sexuality, a suicide attempt and a teen pregnancy. The period just before we reach adulthood is often filled with turmoil, and most of us face some dark moments. Like so many of her books, Forever encapsulates the turbulence of that strange, often exhilarating but also terrifying time.
But writing so honestly about the things teenagers desperately want to know about hasn’t been applauded in all quarters. As superfan Lena Dunham says in the documentary: ‘Judy’s books speak about the unspeakable. That’s the reason why they’re so complicated for people.’
From the 1980s until the present day, her books have been banned in many American libraries; recently, she said that a rise in intolerance in the US has led to a ‘much worse’ epidemic of book banning than she experienced 40 years ago. She continues to receive constant death threats from right-wing zealots who claim she’s poisoning young minds. In Judy Blume: Forever, footage is shown of her being interviewed in the 80s, saying she won’t be deterred because ‘kids have a right to read and get honest answers to their questions.’ At 85, she continues to campaign against censorship.
This year is just the start of the Judy Blume renaissance: her book Superfudge is being turned into an animated series for Disney+, Netflix is planning a series based on Forever and a series based on Summer Sisters, her 1998 adult novel, is also in the works.
So here’s to women and girls continuing to discover this incredible woman’s work long into the future. Times change, trends come and go, but some books resonate, well, forever.
Judy Blume: Forever is on Amazon Prime from April 21st. Are You There God It’s Me Margaret is in cinemas from 19 May.
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