Just as Long as We're Together by Judy Blume
"Just as Long as We're Together" by Judy Blume is a coming-of-age novel centered on the experiences of Stephanie Hirsch, a seventh-grade girl navigating the complexities of adolescence and relationships. The story delves into the impact of her parents' separation on her emotional well-being and self-identity, as well as the strain on her friendship with Rachel Robinson, a perfectionist who feels betrayed when Stephanie keeps her family struggles secret. As Stephanie deals with the pressures of adolescence, including her feelings of inadequacy compared to a new friend, Alison, she grapples with issues of self-esteem and the changing dynamics of her friendships.
The narrative explores the themes of friendship, the challenges of growing up, and the evolving nature of personal relationships. Stephanie's experiences are compounded by her role as a caretaker for her younger brother, Bruce, adding another layer of responsibility to her already tumultuous life. The tensions between the characters reach a climax as they confront their insecurities and the potential dissolution of their friendship. In keeping with Blume's signature style, the novel concludes without a clear resolution, leaving readers to ponder the complexities of relationships and the uncertainties of adolescent life.
Just as Long as We're Together by Judy Blume
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1987
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Tensions within Just as Long as We’re Together come from two sources: the separation between Stephanie Hirsch’s parents and that between Stephanie and her best friend, Rachel Robinson. The main theme of the novel revolves around the awkwardness of identifying oneself with and within relationships, both marital and sororal.
Though the story is told dominantly from Stephanie’s perspective, she often plays a supporting role within the story’s subplots: the surprise and awkwardness surrounding her parents’ separation; the welcome intrusion of Alison, a Vietnamese adoptee to a famous Hollywood couple who have just moved into the neighborhood and into Stephanie’s group of friends; and the resultant strain upon Stephanie’s friendship with Rachel, a self-professed perfectionist who is the toast of the seventh grade.
As might be expected in the narrative of a young girl entering her teen years, Stephanie experiences a mix of burgeoning traumas. She has discovered boys as sexual objects worthy of her attention, she has discovered her own inadequacies in juxtaposition to the instantly popular Alison and irrepressible overachiever Rachel, and she even must deal with acting as a surrogate parent to her younger brother, Bruce, himself an overachiever yet slightly neurotic concerning global issues such as nuclear devastation.
Such pressures begin to take a physical toll upon Stephanie. She compensates for her inability to rectify her parents’ relationship (her father is perpetually on business in California, and her mother approaches the trial separation with a calm that unnerves her further) by overeating, to the extent that both friends and family notice. This only compounds her self-criticism. Worse, she cannot confide in her friends because of the shame she feels and becomes mortified when word of the separation begins to spread. When the news finally reaches Rachel, who sees that Stephanie did not tell her about her parents’ separation, Rachel overreact and disavows her friendship with Stephanie, on the basis that best friends do not keep secrets from each other.
The long-simmering pressure between Rachel and Stephanie reaches a boil only when Rachel’s personal stresses become more than she can withstand. The arrival of Alison, someone whom Rachel and Stephanie view as so well-adjusted and popular that she threatens their own self-esteem, and the fact that Stephanie’s life has become so convoluted that she unconsciously becomes distant to her, Rachel feels threatened and becomes defensive at what appears to her from her limited perspective as abandonment. Only at novel’s end do both Stephanie and Rachel discover that they have had similar situations arise when they are forced to consider whether their friendship is salvageable or not.
As is customary within Blume’s work, she denies the reader conclusion. Whether the girls’ friendship can survive being a trio remains a mystery at the book’s close. Likewise, though Stephanie’s father returns from California to live in New York, the trial separation remains in place. The only real conclusion at which Stephanie arrives involves the transitory nature of romantic relationships, as she watches her parents consider other partners and her girlfriends, including herself, experience loves found and lost with boys who are as socially maladroit as are they themselves.
Bibliography
Blume, Judy. “Places I Never Meant to Be: A Personal View.” American Libraries 30 (1999): 62-67.
Garber, Stephen. “Judy Blume: New Classicism for Kids.” English Journal 73 (April 1984): 56-59.
Gleasner, Diana. Breakthrough: Women in Writing. New York: Walker, 1980.
Lee, Betsy. Judy Blume’s Story. Minneapolis: Dillon Press, 1981.
Naylor, Alice Phoebe, and Carol Wintercorn. “Judy Blume.” In American Writers for Children Since 1960: Fiction, edited by Glenn Estes. Vol. 52 in Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Bruccoli Clark, 1986.
Weidt, Maryann. Presenting Judy Blume. Boston: Twayne, 1990.