The author says she was working through thoughts of divorce, but was still taken aback by her daughter's perception
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NEED TO KNOW
- Judy Blume was married to John Blume from 1959 to 1975
- The author has spoken about how her writing could help her work out things in her own life, as well as helping readers
- Blume’s first divorce and its connections to her book, It’s Not the End of the World are discussed by Mark Oppenheimer in Judy Blume: A Life
Judy Blume's books have helped her work through some difficult periods of her life.
In Judy Blume: A Life by journalist Mark Oppenheimer, a self-proclaimed longtime Blume aficionado, conducted exclusive interviews with Blume and accessed her papers and correspondence in his dive into the author's life.
The book touches on Blume's personal life as well as her storied professional career. Her first husband, John Blume, "accepted" her writing career, with the condition that it didn't inconvenience him.
Oppenheimer wrote, "He said, 'As long as you can still keep up with your responsibilities. You're responsible for the house and the children. And if you can do this on the side, fine.' "
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Credit: Bettmann Archive
Judy began wanting different things out of the relationship than John did, due to societal and personal changes.
"It was building, you know? I wanted to be out there. I wanted to be free. I wanted to sleep with whoever I wanted to sleep with. I wanted all those sixties things that I missed," Judy said, per the biography.
The author spent years considering the possibility before her marriage ended. When it did, daughter Randy wasn't entirely surprised, as she thought it was coming years prior, when she'd read early drafts of Judy's book, It's Not the End of the World.
"I knew the divorce was coming because I was, you know, the reader. I came home from school. There was a stack of pages for me to read," Randy said of the novel, which explores a sixth grader named Karen navigating her parents' divorce.
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When Judy asked her opinion, Randy reportedly replied, "Oh, so are you and Daddy getting divorced?"
In the interim, Judy did try to work on the marriage, once suggesting couples therapy to John, who was quoted as telling her, "There's nothing wrong with me. You go."
In a blog Judy wrote on her website about It's Not the End of the World, she wrote, "At the time, my own marriage was in trouble but I wasn't ready or able to admit it to myself, let alone anyone else. In the hope that it would get better, I dedicated this book to my husband."
"But a few years later, we, too, divorced. It was hard on all of us, more painful than I could have imagined, but somehow we muddled through and it wasn't the end of any of our worlds, though on some days it might have felt like it."
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