{"id":14561,"date":"2023-04-27T18:35:38","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T01:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14561"},"modified":"2023-04-27T18:35:40","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T01:35:40","slug":"why-are-you-there-god-its-me-margaret-still-matters-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14561","title":{"rendered":"“Why \u2018Are You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret\u2019 Still Matters”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Elisabeth Egan, Essay, April 27, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judy Blume\u2019s coming-of-age story finally hits the big screen this month. The book will always have a spotlight of its own<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This
\u201cMy mother\u2019s always telling me about when she was a girl,\u201d Margaret tells us in the novel. \u201cIt\u2019s supposed to make me feel that she understands everything.\u201dCredit…Wesley Allsbrook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Listen to This Article<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Listen<\/strong> 13:21 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I arrived at the Crosby Street Hotel for a screening of \u201cAre You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret<\/a>?,\u201d a man in the lobby located my name on a list, then directed me to a line for the coat check. I heard the crowd before I saw it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hip Soho hangout was abuzz with laughing, chatting, selfie-snapping, champagne-sipping fans of the novel that launched a thousand breast enhancement exercises and frank conversations about puberty. One table was piled high with copies of Blume\u2019s book, another with personalized diaries. Mine said, \u201cAre You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Elisabeth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, I\u2019d stopped reading the invitation after \u201cPlease join us for an afternoon with Judy Blume\u201d; what more did I need to know? Alas, this gathering wasn\u2019t going to be the intimate affair I\u2019d imagined, the one where Blume and I sat in an empty theater and bonded over a box of Milk Duds. This was an event<\/em>, with a photographer, two hashtags \u2014 #itsmemargaret and #margaretmoment \u2014 and humans of every age, gender, race and manner of ironic eyewear one-upping each other\u2019s devotion to the story we were there to celebrate. Words like \u201cobsessed\u201d and \u201cadore\u201d hovered over the room, heavy with italics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t understand,\u201d a stranger said. \u201cI am<\/em> Margaret.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course I understood. I was Margaret, too. So were all my friends, and maybe yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be hard to overstate how important the book \u201cAre You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret\u201d was to the girls of Generation X<\/a>, especially the subset I grew up with a few exits north of the (fictional) New Jersey suburb where it takes place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were girls who loved puffy stickers, fruit roll-ups, jelly shoes, Madonna bracelets and Cabbage Patch Kids. We were told we were equal, but \u201cboys will be boys\u201d was still a perfectly acceptable response to boorish behavior. We didn\u2019t have a word for bullying. We didn\u2019t have Google. If we were lucky, we had call waiting. If we were really lucky, we had a rotary phone with a cord that stretched to our bedroom. Movies were in theaters, music was on the radio and news landed on the front steps once a day with a thud. Books were made of paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Into this siloed world marched Judy Blume, bearing news of other tweens (a term that hadn\u2019t been coined yet). \u201cAre You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret?\u201d was her clarion call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To us, Margaret Simon wasn\u2019t a character, she was a proxy \u2014 for the girl who stuffed socks in her bra, who felt uncomfortable in her own skin; for the girl who was homesick for a friend who had matured overnight or moved away or turned mean; for the girl who struggled to make sense of the diagrams on the origami-folded instructions inside the tampon box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We watched The Movie in health class, snickering when our red-faced instructor stepped out for a smoke. We had The Book, with its old-fashioned false cheer: \u201cYou\u2019re becoming a woman! Swell!\u201dMaybe our parents gave us The Talk, maybe they didn\u2019t. Best-case scenario, they leaned into \u201cuterus,\u201d \u201covaries\u201d and\u00a0\u201cfallopian tubes,\u201d skipping \u201csperm\u201d altogether.\u00a0Ohandbythewaytherearepadsunderthebathroomsink.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we still had so many questions, ones we barely had the language to articulate and only dared to whisper in the dark during a sleepover. Margaret asked these questions, and Blume answered with candor and respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She spoke at the Crosby before the lights dimmed \u2014 the actual Judy Blume, now 85, warmly self-deprecating but also clearly accustomed to the roar of applause that accompanied her to the podium. She talked about why, 52 years after entering the world, \u201cAre You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret\u201d\u00a0was ready for film<\/a>. She said it was her most personal book, written for her daughter, now in her early 60s. She thanked her childhood friends for being there. The fact that they were says something about Judy Blume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret?” has evolved over the years. Clockwise from left: The original 1970 cover, followed by versions published in 1982, 1991 and 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll admit, I showed up at the screening ready to nitpick and quibble. What if the movie was terrible? What if it failed to capture the essence of Margaret or the Garden State or the freewheeling but rule-bound era I remembered? Even worse \u2014 the very idea made me ill \u2014 what if the movie eclipsed the book?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time the Simon family moved from Manhattan to Morningbird Lane, I\u2019d untucked from my defensive crouch. By the time Margaret started sixth grade (sockless, per the instruction of her bossy neighbor), I\u2019d shrugged off my mantle of quality control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know about the movie, which lands in theaters on April 28: It\u2019s faithful to the book. It captures the vulnerability, curiosity, occasional cruelty and unvarnished potential of a person on the brink of adolescence. I\u2019ve been an 11-year-old, I\u2019ve been the mother of three 11-year-olds, and it still gave me a fresh look at this complicated and dazzling age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halfway through, a memory surfaced, as crisp as the picture in front of me. I was in fifth grade, in my bedroom, recuperating from a pelvic fracture sustained when I was hit by a car on my way home from school. The agony of it was so exquisite, I have yet to experience anything like it again \u2014 not during childbirth, not when a green sprinkle lodged itself in my eye for two weeks, not after I tumbled off a speeding Segway in Budapest and broke three ribs and an elbow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Desperate for distraction, unable to do anything but lie still, I grabbed a novel from my night stand. You can guess what it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Margaret landed in my room that day is a mystery. Maybe I borrowed the book from a friend or checked it out of the library. Maybe my sister left it for me, or my grandmother, who blazed into town while I was in the hospital. My parents were unlikely culprits; they were, understandably, distracted, plus my mom put Judy Blume in the same category as Barbies: too much, too graphic<\/em>, not for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret\u201d was among the first books I read in a single day, inhaling it as the light changed on my bedspread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late afternoon, the school principal stopped by to see me. I didn\u2019t really know Mrs. Murray \u2014 I wasn\u2019t a troublemaker, I wasn\u2019t gifted \u2014 but there she was, perched on the edge of my bed, filling my room with her pungent perfume. Because I had \u201cWe must, we must, we must increase our bust\u201d on the brain, I couldn\u2019t help noticing that her blouse was so sheer, I could count the hook and eye closures marching up the back of her bra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I answered Mrs. Murray\u2019s questions \u2014 Had I received the cards from my class? Did I need anything from my cubby? \u2014 I tried to ignore the parallel inquisition happening inside my head: Did she think my \u201cPeanuts\u201d sheets were babyish? Was she grossed out by my injury, close as it was to my uterus? Most pressing of all: Would Mrs. Murray notice the title of the paperback I tried to hide under my palm?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t want the principal to know I was reading about periods and breasts. What if she told my teacher? What if he thought I was a pervert? I\u2019d like to think a modern 11-year-old wouldn\u2019t be so racked with mortification but, trust me, the \u201980s were a different time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After she sipped the tea my mom delivered, after the three of us brainstormed crutch-friendly Halloween costumes, Mrs. Murray hefted her pocketbook onto one shoulder and got up to leave. But first, she tapped her burgundy nails on the cover of \u201cAre You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret,\u201d resting an index finger gently on Margaret\u2019s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s such a good one,\u201d she said. \u201cEnjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no brass band, no thunderbolt. The earth didn\u2019t move under my feet. There was just a spark of recognition: fellow reader, kindred spirit. That was it. #mymargaretmoment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s an intimacy to a book that we can\u2019t get from a movie or a TV show, no matter how true it is \u2014 even in 3-D, in the highest of high def. You can\u2019t hold a movie with both hands. You can\u2019t smell it or put your initials on it or underline your favorite parts. You can\u2019t read the names of other people who checked it out of the library, fellow detectives on the trail of life. You can\u2019t pass it on to your own kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A movie lets you watch; a book invites you in. A much-loved one might even fall open to your favorite page. A book will find you when you need it most and show you what you want to know at the exact pace you\u2019re able to absorb the words. It has a strong spine and a sturdy binding, just like Margaret herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the credits rolled and the theater brightened, I wasn\u2019t the only tear-streaked person clutching a sodden tissue. And of course, there was Judy Blume, thanking every guest at the door of the theater. Two hours earlier, meeting her would have been the highlight of my adult life; now, she was a much-admired obstacle to be navigated before I called my sister, crying, and then boarded the train home to New Jersey, where I cried some more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were so many things I wanted to say: You showed me how honesty can suck the sting out of just about everything \u2014 worry, embarrassment, loneliness, fear, even the bafflements of the human body. You taught me that nothing is unspeakable. Margaret will always have a place on my shelf. And, just curious\/no pressure, have you considered a sequel about menopause? Did Margaret suffer from insomnia? Did she have any luck with melatonin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when it was my turn to say goodbye to Judy Blume, I only managed to choke out two words: \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her response echoed the message we found in her books \u2014 the one on the flag she planted at the threshold of adolescence, which still waves today. She looked me in the eye and said, simply, \u201cYou\u2019re welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audio produced by\u00a0Tally Abecassis.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elisabeth Egan, Essay, April 27, 2023 Judy Blume\u2019s coming-of-age story finally hits the big screen this month. The book will always have a spotlight of its own. Listen to This Article Listen 13:21  When I arrived at the Crosby Street Hotel for a screening of \u201cAre You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret?,\u201d a man in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14562,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561\/revisions\/14562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}