מאת Judy Blume
“Makes us feel the pure shock and wonder of living.... Judy Blume isn’t just revered, she’s revolutionary.” —The New York Times Book Review
“No one captures coming-of-age milestones…like Blume.” —The Boston Globe
Here she imagines and weaves together a vivid portrait of three generations of families, friends, and strangers, whose lives are profoundly changed during one winter. At the center of an extraordinary cast of characters are fifteen-year-old Miri Ammerman and her spirited single mother, Rusty. Their warm and resonant stories are set against the backdrop of an extraordinary real-world tragedy.
Gripping, authentic, and unforgettable, In the Unlikely Event has all the hallmarks of this renowned author’s deft narrative magic.
“Makes us feel the pure shock and wonder of living.... Judy Blume isn’t just revered, she’s revolutionary.” —The New York Times Book Review
“No one captures coming-of-age milestones…like Blume.” —The Boston Globe
Here she imagines and weaves together a vivid portrait of three generations of families, friends, and strangers, whose lives are profoundly changed during one winter. At the center of an extraordinary cast of characters are fifteen-year-old Miri Ammerman and her spirited single mother, Rusty. Their warm and resonant stories are set against the backdrop of an extraordinary real-world tragedy.
Gripping, authentic, and unforgettable, In the Unlikely Event has all the hallmarks of this renowned author’s deft narrative magic.
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March 2, 2015
The three fatal plane crashes that hit Elizabeth, N.J., during the winter of 1951–52 are the inspiration for Elizabeth-native Blume's latest adult novel (the first since 1998's Summer Sisters), in which young and old alike must learn to come to terms with technological disaster and social change. The novel opens in 1987, when Miri Ammerman's return to Elizabeth for a commemorative ceremony brings back memories of the year she turned 15. In flashback, readers are brought back to the 1950s—Kate Smith, Lilly Dache, J.D. Salinger, Korea—from a variety of perspectives: Miri; her single mom; her supportive uncle; her wise grandmother; Miri's best friend, Natalie, daughter of a workaholic dentist and his shopaholic wife; Christina, a Greek girl secretly dating an Irish boy; passengers on the ill-fated planes. Miri's uncle earns recognition for reporting on the crashes in the local newspaper, but when Miri writes about the reactions at school she lands in the principal's office. Disaster produces other unexpected developments: Miri's boyfriend saves lives, while Natalie hears dead people. Maintaining her knack for personal detail, Blume mixes Miri's familiar coming-of-age melodrama with an exploration of how disasters test character, alter relationships, and reveal undercurrents of a seemingly simple world. She evokes '50s music, ethnic neighborhoods, and Las Vegas in the early days, while posing the question, how do individuals, families, and communities, deal with disaster? Her answer may not be entirely new, but her novel is characteristically accessible, frequently charming, and always deeply human. 350,000-copy first printing. -
November 1, 2015
In the winter of 1951-52, three separate airplanes crashed into Elizabeth, NJ, near Newark Airport. Blume was a young teen at the time, and she revisits the events of those months in her latest novel told in the third person from multiple points of view. The main character, 15-year-old Miri Ammerman, lives in Elizabeth with her single mother, Rusty. Miri's Uncle Henry is a small-town journalist who makes a name for himself writing about the crashes for the local paper. Miri's grandmother Irene keeps the family fed and befriends a man who was widowed in the first crash. These and other protagonists' viewpoints help to build a picture of life in New Jersey in the early 1950s. Although there are many voices, Blume skillfully weaves their stories together so that it is always clear who each character is and what their connections are to one another. Miri experiences first love (with a non-Jewish boy) and begins to learn the truth about her father and his family. Her best friend Natalie, whose family and life Miri has always envied, begins a downward spiral into anorexia and believes that she is hearing messages from a dancer named Ruby who died on the first plane. This is a wonderful picture of a community living their lives while responding to not just one catastrophe but three. VERDICT Fans of Blume will clamor for this, but so, too, will any teen who enjoys a well-written coming-of-age novel that strongly evokes a specific time and place.-Sarah Flowers, formerly of Santa Clara County (CA) Library
Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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September 28, 2015
In 1952, the New Jersey town of Elizabeth is traumatized by three separate plane crashes in the span of one year. Blume’s novel explores the events of that tumultuous period through the eyes of 15-year-old Miri, her family, other residents of the town, and relatives of the victims. Narrator McInerney expertly voices the myriad of characters, ranging from small children to teenagers to the elderly, giving each a distinct voice and portraying the conflicting emotions and events, both large and small. In addition to the trauma of the plane crashes, Miri and her friends are going through adolescence, high school, first loves, and plans for college or jobs. Through her narration, McInerney is able to convey all the characters’ horror and reaction to the tragedies. She also captures their coming-of-age story, the little joys and sorrows and insecurities of growing up, the sense of small-town life in the 1950s—and the mature perspective of Miri as she returns to her hometown 35 years later for a memorial. This is a thoughtful, insightful tale, well told and well narrated. A Knopf hardcover. -
Gayle Brandeis, The San Francisco Chronicle
"In the Unlikely Event gives us everything that Blume is known (and beloved) for--the fierce, fraught nature of young relationships, the comfort and confines of cultural identity, the messiness and joys of the body--and takes it to a new level. This novel is her most ambitious to date, and she lives up to its reach with her characteristic frankness, compassion, and charm."
- Caroline Leavitt, The New York Times Book Review "Judy Blume isn't just revered, she's revolutionary. . . . The novel moves with momentum, told in short chapter bursts, newspaper reports and even scripted dialogue. . . . Blume nails every 1950s detail, from the refinished basements with wet bars and knotty-pine walls to Elizabeth Taylor haircuts and mentions of Bogart and Bacall. . . . Blume, whose fiction for adults has the same emotional immediacy as her books for children, makes us feel the pure shock and wonder of living."
- Sarah Larson, The New Yorker "An ambitious book that combines adult experience with the sweet familiarity of Blume's writing for and about younger people. . . . The novel rivals Tolstoy or Ferrante in its number of characters, families, and stories, and it feels not just believable but like a regular preteen-style Judy Blume page-turner, emotionally resonant and down-to-earth at once. . . . It's also the experience of being in Blume's authoritative hands, reading a dramatic story about daily life told in a funny, orderly, honest style. Blume is always kind to her readers; the suffering her characters experience feels real but never cruel, never melodramatic. . . . [Her books are] deftly crafted, and she's done the hard work for us. . . . Reading In the Unlikely Event is like reconnecting with a long-lost friend."
- Kim Hubbard, People Magazine "Judy Blume is back--and on her game! . . . A deftly written story that captures a town coping with loss and the sudden fame that horrible tragedy brings. You won't want to turn the last page."
- Meganne Fabrega, Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Will appeal to loyal fans as well as new readers. . . . In Miri, Blume deftly exposes the inner life of a teenager girl during the 1950s--and not the sanitized version so often portrayed. In the Unlikely Event integrates Blume's acclaimed observation of the teenage experience with intimate knowledge of an unusual series of events, making it a page-turner with cross-generational appeal."
- Viv Groskop, The Guardian (U.K.) "Quite simply, extraordinary."
- Emily Simon, Buffalo News "[In the Unlikely Event] does not disappoint. . . . Blume's great gift is [her] personal touch; her unflinching but reassuring voice--that of a no-nonsense big sister who gives it to you straight, then gives you a hug--characterizes her adult novels as distinctly as it does her YA output."
- Amanda St. Amand, St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Blume creates characters who are real and sympathetic."
- Melissa M. Firman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Satisfying, heartfelt. . . Delivers on the warm nostalgia that we remember from Blume's earlier books. . . It is her signature unparalleled ability to capture the innermost lives of teenagers that makes In the Unlikely Event vintage Judy Blume."
- Margaret Quamme, The Columbus Dispatch "The details of the time and place ring true, and so do the feelings of the characters."
- Aimee Levitt, Chicago Reader "Excellent and satisfying. . . Has all the elements of Blume's best books: the complex relationships between friends and family members, the straight talk and lack of shame about sex, and, most of all, the compassionate insight into the pleasures and pains of growing up."
- Alexis Burling, The Oregonian "Vividly rendered. . . Blume deftly demonstrates just how different the personal fallout from tragedy can turn out to be. . . . As Blume proves over and over again not just in In the Unlikely Event but in all of her fiction, life does go on in spite of hardship. We love. We lose. We fail. We may fall. But the lucky ones, we try our best to endure."
