Shocking News about Judy Blume with Mark Oppenheimer

[1:58]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com, and follow me on Instagram zibby owens. Mark Oppenheimer is the author of Judy Blum, A Life. Mark has been covering American religion for twenty five years, holds a PhD in religious studies from Yale, and has taught at Stanford, Wesleyan, Wellesley, NYU, Boston College, and Yale, where he was the founding director of the Yale Journalism Institute. He also wrote the beliefs column for the New York Times for six years and has written for many publications, including the New Yorker, the Nation, GQ Slate, and more. He created Unorthodox, a show that I was actually on. It's the world's most popular podcast about Jewish life and culture with over 7,000,000 downloads. Most recently, he hosted an eight part podcast called Gatecrashers about the history of Jews and antisemitism at Ivy League schools. He is the author of five books, including the Newish Jewish Encyclopedia. I had his coauthor on to talk about that, Stephanie Butnick. And most recently, Squirrel Hill, the Tree of Life, Synagogue, Shooting, and the Soul of a Neighborhood. He edits ARC Magazine and lives in Connecticut with his wife, four daughters, one son, and one dog. Welcome, Mark. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about Judy Blum Alight. So exciting. Thanks for having me. Yeah. My pleasure. By the way, I posted about the book, and then I realized you were not on social media. What is up with that?

[3:54]Mark Oppenheimer: It was a a sanity saving measure about eight or nine years ago. Do you want the story? I have a thirty second story of I would love the story. Yes. So and I should preface this by saying some of my best friends and favorite people are on social media, and I'm not I'm not a scold about it. But, you know, everyone has their own social media journey. I was, I think, on Facebook engaged in some utterly trivial neighborhood dispute having to do with, I don't know, you know, snow removal or the school playground or something in my neighborhood with some person I liked. And I was writing something that came off as snarky or cruel as people do in Facebook fights. And one of my daughters, I honestly forget which one at this point, was leaning over my shoulder reading what I was writing. And she said, dad, that isn't kind. I think if I wrote that, you would be mad at me. And I had this, like, come to Jesus moment where I thought, oh my god. My child like, I'm not I'm not modeling good adulthood. I'm being petty and cruel and stupid publicly, and my child caught me. I was so I was so ashamed. And within forty eight hours, I just posted to Twitter and Facebook, which were the two social medias I was on. I was like, I'm I'm done. Those of you who care about me and know me have my address and my phone number. And if anyone else doesn't have it, I'm happy to send it to you before I leave by. And it's you know? And then within two or three weeks, you've detoxed and you forget it exists. I forget Facebook exists. I'm I'm surprised when I hear people talk about it now. Wow.

[5:16]Zibby Owens: Well Yeah. That's it's powerful to know it can actually be done. And it sounds like the takeaway here is if you can't be snarky, you're just not gonna do it.

[5:28]Mark Oppenheimer: Right. I mean, I have right. The that is well said. I have friends who are like, well, just be nice and polite and kind. Be your best self on social media. And for whatever reason, that was that wasn't too hard for me. That was too hard for me. I I have I even even in person speaking, have too quick a trigger finger. I say things that I wish I could, you know, reel back in. So social media was not good for me.

[5:50]Zibby Owens: I'm I'm putting on a metaphorical, you know, knight coat of arms here to protect myself from whatever daggers fly in the next few minutes.

[5:58]Mark Oppenheimer: Well, I was I mean, the irony is like, I actually think I'm a really nice person. I don't pick fights, and I don't I don't take offense easily. It was it was only on social media that I think I was that. I mean, I can be sarcastic and, you know, but I think I think in person, there's good the goodwill behind comes across. And in social media, it was I was just an asshole. So Okay. Well, good self awareness. Good self awareness. In that in that, if nothing else. Right?

[6:24]Zibby Owens: And that's such a natural segue to talking about Sure. Bloom. Judy Bloom. They just follow each other so nicely. Yeah. Well, Judy Bloom, everyone's hero. How did you end up tackling Judy as a topic?

[6:37]Mark Oppenheimer: Sure. So I had always loved Judy Blum as a there were two or three years of my childhood, probably from ages, you know, nine to 11 when it's all I've read. I just had a dozen of her books, and I read them and reread them and reread them. And I was not interested in the stuff they foist on young boys, which was always like a lot of fantasy, and, you know, it was pre Harry Potter, but it was, you know, Lord of the Rings and Narnia, and there were, you know, books with robots and biographies of sports heroes. There's all this boy stuff they give you, and I just wanted realism. I just wanted, like, whatever the junior version of of Roth and Meg Wolitzer and, you know, Rebecca Mackay and Updike, like real people doing real things. That's what I wanted. So I loved her books. And then when I was in my early twenties, I wrote a piece about her that I sent to the New York Times Book Review, snail mail, and they wrote back and said, we'd love to publish it. So I had this essay about her that she saw when I was very young as a writer. And she got in touch with me, and we struck up a I wouldn't even call it a friendship. Every five years or so, one of us would send the other one a note. And then about ten years ago, I suggested that I write her biography, and she wasn't interested. She was in her seventies. She felt she had a lot of life left to live. You know, a biography feels kind of like mortality, like you're acknowledging mortality. But then during COVID, out of the blue, she sent me an email saying, perhaps now's the time for me to talk to a biographer. You know, she's she was getting older. I think COVID made us all think about mortality. So she agreed to do it. It's not authorized. It's my book. I have final say. It's not her book. But she agreed to sit for interviews and to, you know, help connect me with some people who could talk about her. So that's how it Has she read it? She did. Part of my agreement with her was that I would and I wanted this agreement. I wanted to show her a draft because I knew that she would catch errors. I mean, inevitably, right, you write 400 pages about a living person, you're gonna get some stuff wrong. And she, yeah, she sent it back. She had read it. Her husband George, her husband of forty years had read it, and they sent it back with, you know, very thorough notes and saved me from a lot of a lot of a lot of errors. So that was great. I mean, again, the final product's mine. The errors are my fault, my responsibility, but I was very grateful to have that help along the way.

[8:55]Zibby Owens: And I know you've written a lot. You wrote about the Pittsburgh shooting, and you write a lot about Jewish issues. You were co you were cohosting unorthodox. How much of Jewish piece of Judy Blum drew you to her, or is it just coincidental that she happens to also be Jewish?

[9:10]Mark Oppenheimer: I think it's mostly coincidental. You know, if I think back to what drew me to her, it was this love I had for her literature when I was a preadolescent, and I don't know that I knew that she was Jewish. I've encountered a lot of people who don't know. You know, Bloom reads in fact, a lot of people think it's a pen name. Like, what what could be a better name for a woman who writes for young people in Judy Bloom, like flowers and, you know, and it was not. It was the the name of her first husband. So I don't think that was weighing heavily, but, of course, once I got into it, I think that was an interesting piece of her story was her Jewish heritage. Another big piece of her story was

[9:46]Zibby Owens: Judy's sexuality herself and through her marriages. From a very young age. You gave us a much closer look at, well, from the very beginning, but all through her adulthood. I mean, I'm like, what would happen if anyone ever did a biography of like a regular person's sexuality? Do know what I mean? Wouldn't that feel so invasive in a way? Like, oh my gosh. Yeah.

[10:11]Mark Oppenheimer: I mean

[10:12]Zibby Owens: right. I mean Not to say you were invasive. I mean, she's a public figure. No. I was. I mean, I

[10:18]Mark Oppenheimer: you know, there's a lot of it that's been public. So if you if you went into the public record, you would find writing she did a lovely essay at one point about getting her period, her first period in a collection about first periods. I don't know that she'd ever spoken about her two abortions. I don't think she had. I think that's new in the book. Yep. But I could be wrong. She's done a lot of work for Planned Parenthood, and it might have come up at some point. But, you know, yeah, it was my job to ask about her early sexuality, her masturbatory life, her how she lost her virginity, what necking in, you know, and and fooling out boys in cars and on porches looked like in suburban New Jersey in the nineteen fifties. You know, her her early same sex experiences with one friend of hers came out in our interviews. Usually, she was very forthcoming and and knew that this was coming. There were definitely times when I, like, pushed for for details.

[11:08]Zibby Owens: Well, it sounded like she didn't even think that was worth commenting on, that whole thing. She was just like, this is what we did on our sleepover, and, like, whatever. It wasn't a big deal. And you're like, could you tell me a little more about that, please?

[11:20]Mark Oppenheimer: Yeah. I mean, she is somebody who I think is not to her great credit, and I envy this. I think she doesn't carry a lot of shame about anything. And, you know, she's somebody who lives her life forward looking and doesn't I mean, she sure surely has regrets. But, no, I don't think she puts certain things away in that, like, pocket of shame that most of us do when we think, oh, there's something I hope this person I hope I never get asked about or that I hope I don't talk about in my sleep. She had actually done an interview with Lena Dunham for the Organist podcast that it also read in the believer magazine, where I think she had talked about fooling around with with her friend at a young age. So, again, I wasn't the first to ask. But, yeah, she doesn't see that as, like, this incredibly important developmental milestone or something that that especially in today's sort of era of fluid sexuality that that gives her a little added insight into what, you know, adolescents with hormones go through. Yeah. You're right. She didn't she was a little surprised, I think. Well, as I was reading, my kids were nearby, and so the things that I could comment on, I would.

[12:20]Zibby Owens: So every so often, would jog your page and be like, oh, look at this. Judy Blum also got a bad Kirkus review. Like, how great is that? Yeah. Like all of us. Right? And then, oh my gosh. Well, listen to this. And did you know Judy Blum is actually married twice? And they were like, whatever. So anyway Thrice. Thrice. Well, yeah. Twice before her marriage. Sorry. Twice before this. Right. Right. Right. Well, she had never talked about the second marriage much. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about the reception of her work at the time because the way you the work itself, the way you take us through all of it, like, not all of it was so earth shattering at the moment. And some of it was sort of like, and some of it was much better. Some of it was controversial. And taken together, it's this astounding amazing amount of work. And as you point out, the fact that it came sort of every year reliably was in and of itself quite a feat, but it wasn't always so

[13:13]Mark Oppenheimer: amazingly. No. I mean, look. Her early books, like Icky's House and Frackle Juice, they took time to find their audiences. Are you there, God, it's me? Margaret was, I think, her third book. And, again, didn't initially blow up, but through word-of-mouth got very, very big, very fast. So that by the time it was in paperback, it was kind of a sensation. There were some very negative reviews of her. I think the big thing that a lot of critics pointed to when they didn't like her was they would say, well, she's just what they called a problem novelist. That is to say, she's got her book on, you know, fat shaming, and she's got her book on masturbation, and she's got her book on bras and periods. She like like, every book just seemed to them a different issue as if she were checking off the list of, like, what's the sexy stuff I can get kids to plug into. And that's not the way she works. She really works like a serious writer character first. She's not looking to make a point or make an argument. She doesn't wanna be heavy handed or pedantic. So I think those reviews were fairly painful. She was also compared to some other writers of the time who were seen as a little more highbrow. So E. L. Konigsberg, S. E. Hinton was a peer was published in the late sixties. And so

[14:18]Zibby Owens: Can I just say that until your book, I did not know S? E. Hinton was Susan and a woman.

[14:23]Mark Oppenheimer: I don't know what I've been living under, but anyway, I did not know that. Well, I don't think you're the first. I mean, I think so did you think S. E. Hinton was was male? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And and that's actually I'm glad you brought that up. That's an incredibly important point in talking about Judy's legacy because she had these peers. I mean, of S. E. Hinton, the outsiders. That was then. This is now. I mean, major, major classics that have been made into movies and now a Broadway show. Right? And yet none of us most of us may not know that S. E. Hinton was male, what S. C. Hinton's name was. None of us can picture S. E. Hinton, who is, I think, still alive and living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And then you have Judy Blum, by contrast, who was always very keen to do readings, to go talk to schools, to go to libraries, to be out there, to be a public figure. She is vivacious and effervescent and a good talker and and very quick on her feet and very sharp and very funny. And so that does play into her book sales and her legacy. And so there were a lot of people whose books were getting banned, and she was the one who really kind of went out there and and was willing to go and cross fire with Pat Buchanan and, like, be a public debater on these questions, which doesn't come easily to a lot of writers who just wanna, you know, be at home writing. Yeah. Now it's required.

[15:37]Zibby Owens: Then it was not expected, and she just rose to the occasion to high acclaim, or it just deepened that connection that she felt. Yeah. By the way, I just remembered another thing that I told my kids since I was reading. I was oh, Judy Blum had a nose job. Did not know that. Yeah. And, you know, that's a funny moment in the book too because I'm sure you've talked to people who've given you their nose job story about why they had to have their nose job. Oh, I was like Deviated septum and

[16:00]Mark Oppenheimer: whatever. Yeah. The whole fave right. Do people even say deviated septum anymore? Is that such a cliche? I don't Like, in the eighties. I'm I'm I'm old No. Myself here. Me too. No. When we were 12, the girls were, like, having deviated septums. And now don't they just say, like, I I wanted a prettier nose. I don't know. I Probably. I so but Judy had, you know, gave me a story about I was at summer camp, and a softball hit my face, and my nose was never the same again. And, of course, if you look at the pictures of her with her old nose, it looks almost identical to the new nose, and she was always very pretty. And, you know, that question of vanity is, you know, is is in the book. I mean, you know, there's always a lot of discussion of her weight because she's always been very thin. I don't necessarily make too much of that, but it's it's part of the public conversation around her. And, you know, she ultimately told me I got my nose done because my picture was being taken a lot, and I didn't like it. And so, you know, there's like all of us, there's some vanity at play, I think. Yeah. The original bookfluencer maybe? Book I don't know. Yeah. Right? Getting at it. Well, she she was kind the original book influencer because she was always promoting other authors also. Yep. And she was always, like, trying to create community around them. And there's that great story from Tayari Jones about how her career was kind of loved that. Yeah. Her career was kinda sinking, and one of her books is out of print, and Judy, like, made a match. She was they were at a conference, and she pulled her over to the editor at Algonquin Books and said, you have to bring this person into print. You have to do her next book. And then she vanished. And Tayari didn't know it was Judy Bloom. We would pull her over to this to the editor at Algonquin.

[17:31]Zibby Owens: Unreal. Well, that's amazing. She's so generous with her time and her efforts, and, yeah, that story was great. And even all the people who she granted interviews to. I have to say, I've interviewed her twice. I was very sad my interviews did not make it into your but it's okay. I'll live with that. You know, I confess I didn't know about them because I have think of the thousands of profiles I didn't get a chance to read of her. She has been in the in the public since July. Has done it.

[17:55]Mark Oppenheimer: You know? And the other thing I'll say is anyone who's interviewed a thousand times, it tells a lot of the same stories over and over again, and Judy's no exception. And I should be so lucky to be interviewed a thousand times and sound a bit repetitive. So at a certain point, my hunt became for that next interview that might tell me something that the last 50 or a 100 hadn't. And by the way, I don't think she's being fake in these interviews. I think she's being authentic in each one of them, but reviewers tend to interviewers tend to ask similar questions. And so it was interesting at a while trying to figure out, do I read the next profile on my pile? Do I interview the next person, or have I am I close enough? You know? And at a certain point, you have to file the book and say, I'm I'm close enough. And I don't I'm sure I could have gotten more. I'm sure you got something out of her the other interviewers didn't.

[18:37]Zibby Owens: Well, you'll just I don't know. I'll find out. Volume two. Judy volume two. The actress. I don't know. Yeah. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to quints. They focus on high quality essentials. Think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still easy. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and tops with styles starting at $32. Their denim is soft and easy to wear. I wear my jean jacket all the time. And their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80 less than similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has really become a destination for elevated essentials across home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. In addition to my jean jacket, I recently got a white tank top dress with a beautiful cotton skirt that is absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait for it to be warm enough so I can wear it every day, but it has been a cool spring. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/zippy for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/zibi for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quince.com/zibi.

[21:29]Zibby Owens: You wrote about her relationship with George, which I saw them together. They were at the Stryker Center where I did this event with her. Yeah. Their relationship is so sort of tender and joking and loving and amazing. And you write about his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. And this is now the first person I know who's actually survived pancreatic cancer. Amazing, right? Right? It's so amazing. But it sounds like it was not such smooth sailing,

[21:55]Mark Oppenheimer: and you admit that you didn't go into that and you could have written a whole book just about that year. So that of course made me immediately curious about what was not written in that time frame. Yeah. I think, you know, I talk to them both a lot about the cancer. I think, I mean, he it was, I guess, treatable. Right? Pancreatic cancer is usually a death sentence. Mhmm. He had a procedure by a a surgeon at Sloan Kettering whose name I've since seen. A In couple other cases, I don't remember their names honestly, but a couple other semi famous people who've survived pancreatic cancer also went to the same guy and had the same procedure. He's the guy. And then they moved to Miami to be closer from Key West to be closer to his treatment, and he was and and he was in intense pain for a lot of the time. And it was very, very moving, and I I probably could have said more. It was near the end of her life, and it I felt like it was less about her than it was about him. And I was trying to think of ways to you know, at the the end of the day, nursing a beloved husband is not a particularly unique experience. Right? It it it was I mean, well, right, we'll all go through it, and there's a way in which it's utterly individual when we're caring for when one spouse is caring for the other one, or when we're grieving a parent or whatever. It's utterly individual and also kind of the same. Mhmm. And I, as a writer, wasn't finding a way into how it moved her story forward that she went through this thing that a lot of people have gone through. I did include, you know, the story of how his daughter flew out and gave a note to the surgeon and Yeah. You know, I think it was a moment where you saw how close this blended family was. You know, it was a it's a small blended family. Judy has two kids. George has one. Between them all, there's one grandchild, and that's it. I mean, there's this very tight unit, and they all really rallied for George who is, I think, Judy, one of the great love stories that there is. They have adored each other since the moment they met. I love that. And even backing up, you tell us a lot about her family of origin.

[23:47]Zibby Owens: And I really enjoyed enjoy. Maybe that's wrong word. I found it really interesting all that you wrote about her older brother and how he would have been diagnosed perhaps as autistic today and had found his way essentially through the military and aircraft and building and all of that. And at that, they reconnected after this sort of not rift, but separation.

[24:06]Mark Oppenheimer: Lack of stillness in the end that they kind of got back together. Yeah. I mean, it's in the great one in all those books. You know? There are often sibling relationships in her books, and there's often one sibling. Right? I mean, she doesn't I don't think she has the book where someone's like one of four. And so that's not, you know, that that's that's clearly there. There are a lot of beloved dads in her book. She was very in her books, she was very close to her dad. Yeah. David was he was a difficult brother to have. He was difficult for their parents. They worried about him. He was he would stay in the basement tinkering all the time. They moved to Florida for the weather because he had a kidney infection. You know, back then, they would tell you, like, go go to a warm place. I don't think anyone says moving to warm climates helps you recover anymore, but that was, of course, the mode at the time. And he at one point was very offended. She made a comment on Joan Rivers talk show that I talk about where she said I think Joan Rivers said something like, where you would you know, you must have been a nerdy bookish kid, and Judy just kind of blurted out. Like, well, my brother was the nerd. I was actually you know, I loved books, but I was kind of popular. And he I don't know if he saw it or one of his kids told him about it, and he was very offended. And there's a letter that she wrote trying to kind of stitch things together again that that apparently she never sent, but that she kind of put down on paper. So it was very moving. I think all of us who have siblings can be moved by these stories. It's like you go through seasons of closeness. But at the end, they, yeah, they kind of pulled it together as a family. You know, she doesn't do estrangement, and I admire that about her. She seems to always feel that relationships can be made better even though they haven't always been perfect.

[25:34]Zibby Owens: True. And I love how you fast forward. I know I'm, like, jumping all over time wise Yeah. Much in this book. But to her experience,

[25:41]Mark Oppenheimer: not only writing Are You There Gotta See Margaret, but then the movie, which I loved. I thought it I I loved it. Realized it hadn't been a huge success. I just assumed it had been because everyone I know went and saw it. But I guess box office wise, it was not as much of a success. But what did you think of the movie? I loved the movie. I thought it was really good. I thought Abby Ryder, who played Margaret, was really good. I thought the Safdie brother. I always forget which Safdie, who played the dad Yep. And Rachel McAdams. I I mean, I and I think it gets the period well. I mean, it's set in the early seventies. I was born in 1974, so, you know, I sort of at through the haze of memory, kind of remember all those earth tones and station wagons. I really enjoyed it, and I thought it I thought it was kinda shafted at the Oscars. I thought, I'm glad that it's on every airplane flight I take seems to the back of the seat seems to offer me. Are you there against me, Margaret? I think it's finding an audience. You know, it was tough because men didn't go see it, and a lot of I think people our age might have taken our children, but I I wonder if a lot of women saw it and would their boyfriends go with them. And, you know, there's how many of the quadrants of possible audience could they hit? And I think in some ways and also, I think period pieces apparently don't do well. I'm just sort of talking about having read variety and stuff to to for this book. But I think that's crazy because, like, to me, nothing is mana like, say, mad men. Right? Like, I like, give me a good period drama with, like, the old clothes and the I'm sure you're the same way. Right? Same way. Yep. It is freaking shocking to me that there are people who don't get off on that, who don't wanna see the seventies beautifully recreated on the screen. Or forget the seventies. Maybe you're younger. You wanna see the nineties. But they don't. Like, they're they're and I've I've heard this from friends of mine who are showrunners who have, like, a great idea about something set in, you know, grunge era Seattle in the nineties. It's like, I feel like every human I know would want the soundtrack, would wanna see that, would want the clothes. It turns out in scripted TV and movies, there aren't a lot of people who are curious about, like, other eras unless it was specifically their own. And so I think the movie had a lot going against it, but I thought it was, like, just beautifully done. I mean, I had a couple minor critiques, but, you know, definitely three and a half stars.

[27:40]Zibby Owens: Did you see singles? Do you remember that movie from Grunge era Seattle? Oh my gosh. I've been meaning to re see it, actually. I've been meaning to re see it too. I'm like, maybe my kids would like it, but they probably they're probably too young. I don't know. Yeah. I read Cameron Crowe's memoir when it came out, and that made me wanna go re see everything he's done, and I haven't seen it yet. Do you feel there's a Judy Blume of today?

[27:59]Mark Oppenheimer: So here's you know, one of my great confessions is that while I'm in a household where my wife and all of my children read, I feel like everything that's popular today, as well as the I mean, they're I'm surrounded by a lot of readers who have a lot to teach me. Yeah. I mean, the joke is I'm the least well read person in this household, but I'm the one writing books about. How many kids do you have? Five. And ages seven to 19. So, you know, there's a lot of children's books, You books. I mean, my a lot my 12 year old's now reading adult books if I hand her. She just read the queen's gambit. I handed her Walter Teves. I said you would take this. She's reading a lot of Stephen King. She's into horror. But do I think there's one of today? Like, I'm not reading enough of what there is today. Certainly, in terms of sales, there are people who vastly exceed what she did. Right? I mean, I think the thinking is that all of her books, all told, have maybe sold a combined 80 or 90,000,000 copies. I think that's nothing to Suzanne Collins or Rick Riordan or JK Rowling. Maybe I'm not totally right. Maybe they're but, you know, I think these phenomena are much bigger than the old phenomena. I think that in terms of reaching people in that sort of poignant sort of childhood sweet spot, if I think about books like Margaret, and then again, maybe I want blubber sort of like for the the nine, 10, 11 year old, not quite adolescent, but but reading avidly. I think the book I see around a lot that seems to do that for my children the most would be the Rayna Telgemeier graphic novels. Yep. Right? Which seem to be, like, about normal kids having somewhat abnormal things happen to them, but always with within a kind of band of, like, family and normalcy, and and that, like, the everyday can have its own form of drama. And those seem to really really do that for a lot of the children I see. I don't know. What do you what do you think? Yeah. I was actually thinking I mean, now it sounds like I just made up that I was seeing that. But I I was thinking that too because,

[29:48]Zibby Owens: you know, I think back to, like, a book expo I went to back when they were doing book expo, and the line for Raina Telgemeier was, like, literally, like, through the entire job. Is that right? Yeah. It was insane.

[29:58]Mark Oppenheimer: And I, like, ran up, and I was like, here's, like, a cookie with my podcast logo. And she's like, just so I could tell Did you do it? I spoke to her. Yeah. Did it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the other one I would say, and I don't I think she's actually an adult novelist, but seems to really hit with my kids at a very young age, is Rainbow Rowell.

[30:14]Zibby Owens: Mhmm.

[30:15]Mark Oppenheimer: Fangirl. I mean, those books, I the excitement level when she comes out with something new in my household is extremely high. But again, as in terms of a lingua franca for, like, my children and their friends, a sort of common currency that they'll trade back and forth, like, I feel like, again, besides the sort of big selling series, the Rick Riordan, the Hunger Games, the Harry Potter, I would say the the the Rayna Tell Jammeyer is like,

[30:38]Zibby Owens: you know, if you've read anything, you've read that. Yeah. But she has not been a Judy Bloom face forward as much. So

[30:45]Mark Oppenheimer: In fact, I I I think of her as kind of shy and retiring. Yeah. Which is like a normal thing for a writer. You know? It's actually a pretty unusual thing. How many of our writers really wanna be out there all the time? You know? Just think of how many of them are sort of retiring homebodies. It's that's the norm. And I think that the fact that Judy was willing to be publicly out there talking about not only the issues in her books, but also the importance of the freedom to read and to just sell her books, to promote other authors. Like, she's been an extraordinary ambassador for for literature. And and and her bookstore in Key West. Yeah. She was she was kind of the first, or maybe she and Anne Patchett were the first of these, you know, authors who decided to also her bookstore was technically a nonprofit. It's a little bit different structure. But, you know, now you have Emma Straub and all these so many authors who are in bookstores.

[31:31]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Amazing. So just to close, how do you feel learning all that you did about Judy and writing this book? How has it changed you? Oh, interesting. I mean, I think I had never this is my sixth book, but my first biography.

[31:43]Mark Oppenheimer: It's a great question. I hadn't thought of it, but but I think I would answer. I think that writing a biography you know, I've written profiles. I've written a lot of magazine profiles. And so I look, the goal is always a kind of critical distance combined with compassion. Right? Like, wanna be an an empathy. You wanna be utterly fair without being a fanboy. Right? Like, the job is to not suck up to them, but to present them in a in a fair and honest way. But also to be utterly fair and not ever like, you don't wanna give in to snark or or sort of rhyness or irony. You wanna remember that everyone's a human being. Everyone. Even people whose politics you loathe. Like, the goal is always as a writer to understand them better, not to put them in boxes. And so I've tried to grow in my reporting when I write shorter pieces about people in in that way, but I think writing a biography called on those skills, like, even more. I hope and I'd certainly I'm sure I didn't get there. I'm sure there are places where my own feelings or prejudices or preconceptions, like, trampled over the person that she was. I think that writing a biography has made me, I hope, more attuned in my daily life to, like, the fact that everyone has their struggles, everyone comes from somewhere, most people are trying their best, and that you just like you wanna be a person who proceeds with with with empathy.

[33:00]Zibby Owens: Love it. Well, that's what books can do for us. Right? All of Yeah. Exactly. Thing we can hope for. So anyway, Mark, I'm glad I escaped without too much snark. Thank you so much for coming. Sibby, thank you for having me, and I'm really honored to be here. I appreciate it. Thanks for reading it. Alright. Of course. Take care. Bye bye. Alright. You take care too. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Sibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.