Friday, January 19, 2018

Judy, Judy, Judy... I'm pretty sure Judy Blume made me want to be a writer. Or at least she made me into a reader. I *was* her target 1970s pre-teen audience and read every one of her middle-grade and teen books about Margaret, Deenie, Sally J. Friedman, and Sheila the Great. I did not read her later "adult" books, but this one intrigued me because a) I'm revisiting writer Judy in my quest to be a YA author, and b) it's based on actual events that happened in 1952, when 3 planes crashed into the well-populated suburb of Elizabeth, New Jersey, within a 3-month period, killing the passengers on board as well as people on the ground. Each of the planes crashed near a school or orphanage, one of them just a few blocks from where the pilot's own daughter attended high school, and after the third plane crashed the old Newark airport location was shut down.
Judy Blume lived through these events as a teenager and decided to tell this amazing story of how the town dealt with these tragedies.
Short version of my writer review: Judy makes it look simple. Her prose is simple and her characters are real people with simple thoughts who use simple dialogue. Although I know it's not as simple to pull off as it looks - and, in this case, she did an incredible amount of research about the crashes and about 1950s America to flesh out these stories - it's ultimately a simple read. Maybe that makes it a great story to read - I mean, I did not put it down! And these people witnessed or lost friends in 3 plane crashes! - but there is not a lot of depth, of language or of character.
The decision to use multiple POV is central to Blume's desire to tell the story of a *town* - an entire community - and, while the thread of the story does connect everyone through the life of a young teen character named Miri (the authors stand-in), there are ultimately probably 20 different character POVs presented. Everyone in the town is connected, and several of the passengers on the doomed plane are also connected to the townspeople. It is a story of intertwined lives.
I understand Blume wanted to do this in order to show how the crashes affected the entire community, and how else to get to know about and care about the passengers on the planes than to introduce them in context, as characters, before the crashes? I found the "everyone gets a POV chapter" method ultimately less satisfying, though, as we just get the surface level of each character's life and the story - and the connections - often feels rushed because of it. Something to think about as a writer, especially as everything I've written so far has been 1st person POV, a single character's life and thoughts.
Breadth v. depth? Which do you prefer?
I am always telling my students (and my own kids) that, even if you have to do something you don't want to do, just be open to the possibility that you could still get something positive out of the experience. I do not always follow my own advice. Today I was scheduled two periods to help out with supervision during our afternoon performing arts rehearsal for the upcoming winter play. I'll admit that I was mumbling to myself about needing time to get other things done besides babysitting high schoolers backstage.
But I took a nice forest walk down to the theater/gym (before the rain & hail started) - so that was the first positive. And then I was sitting there, listening to our director get the kids organized, and then he shared this amazing quote and perspective with them about the need for empathy... Empathy for one another, as they each stretch out of their comfort zones (keep in mind that our performing arts program is *mandatory*) and take great risks in being on stage, singing, dancing, acting. But also empathy for the characters that they will embody. He read a quote about how theater builds empathy. I couldn't find the exact quote again, but I found the source for the idea from the Artistic Director at the SF Playhouse website: "When I think about it this way, it becomes clear why empathy in our world today is in such short supply. It isn’t always fun. To really feel what others suffer is painful. When we enter a character’s grief, her sorrow, his remorse, we kindle those feelings in ourselves. If all the circumstances in the theatre are just right, the lighting, the music, the acting, our hearts will jump to life and ache with the characters as they yearn, and suffer and hope. It hurts us like it hurts them and we feel joined with their humanity."
I was intrigued by thinking about the theater experience - for both actors and the audience - in this way. And I was glad I was scheduled to be there and witness this moment, the implicit education our 14-18 year olds are receiving by being involved in this enterprise, and hearing these words from such dedicated teachers.