Out with a new book for high school and college
graduates, Judith Viorst talks about why her
Jewish heritage is more important to her now.

4WD TH WORST

DINA FUCHS
Special to the Jewish News

jr

udith Viorst won't divulge her
age, but a manuscript she is
now writing offers some clues.
The author of more than two
dozen books, including It Hard to Be
Hip Over Thirty and Other 77-agedies of
Married Life, How Did I Get To Be
Forty and Other Atrocities and
Forever Fifty and Other
Negotiations, is now penning
Suddenly 60, due out next year.
"I think I'll keep writing," she
says, musing about the future
during a phone interview from
her Washington, D.C., home.
"I'm always writing — I'm never
not writing."
Long before Men Are From
Mars, Women Are From Venus or
Dr. Laura, Judith Viorst had
already discovered that
Americans were hungry for
books that helped them learn to
help themselves. Her 1987
blockbuster, Necessary Losses,
spent almost two years on the
New York Times bestseller list and
was published in 12 languages.
"I don't think of myself as a
writer of pop psychology," she
notes. "I am interested in raising
consciousness and making people
aware of what they're doing, of
what's going on, and then, of
struggling with these issues for
themselves."
Rather than offering quick-fix
solutions, Viorst tackles complex
issues that often require further explo-
ration. Many of the topics she delves
into may be areas of ongoing struggle
that can never be fully resolved. "[My
books] ask a lot of the reader and they
don't offer answers," she says. "They
give food for thought."
Viorst was already a writer when
she decided to add psychology creden-
tials to her resume. As an undergradu-
ate at Rutgers University, she studied
history. She later edited children's
books and then found work copy-edit-
ing science books.
A short time later, she heard that the

Dina Fuchs is a senior staff writer at our
sister publication the Atlanta Jewish Times.

5/14
1999

84 Detroit Jewish News

New York Herald Tribune was looking
for a Washington-based correspondent
to do society reporting. Viorst was
hired and soon began hobnobbing with
movers and shakers in the capital city,
covering White House events and balls.
She also contributed poems to the
paper's Sunday supplement, which later
became New York magazine.

Judith Viorst: `1 wanted my
kids to grow up with a strong
identity and have a sense of a
connection with Jews today
and Jews throughout history"

Top left: Viorst new book is a
wry look at the Pleasures and
anxieties of leaving home.

In 1981, Viorst graduated from the
Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.
She. has since written eight collections
of poetry and several works of fiction
and nonfiction. She also spent 25 years
as a columnist for Redbook magazine.
Her last book, Imperfect Control, was
published a year ago and was just
released in paperback. "I've had great
satisfaction, in different ways, from all
of them," she says. "Each form of writ-
ing I do offers me certain pleasures."
Of her nearly 30 books, a dozen
were written for children, including
the classics Alexander and the Terrible,
No Good, Very Bad Day, and The Tenth
Good Thing About Barney.

Each week she receives hundreds of
letters from children across the coun-
try — sometimes from entire class-
rooms — who are fans of her stories.
"It is fun standing in the shoes of a
6-year-old and finding your own kid
inside you writing children's books,"
she says. "And it is a different kind of
pleasure to write in first person."
Viorst grew up in the New
Jersey suburbs of New York. Her
family was Jewish in name, but
not necessarily in practice — her
parents did not belong to a syna-
gogue, did not have a seder during
Passover and did not participate in
most other Jewish holidays.
"I have a much more culturally
Jewish home than I grew up in,"
she says. "I think it's a third-gener-
ation Jewish thing. The grandpar-
ents come over and they're bring-
ing all of their traditions with
them. The next generation is try-
ing to become American. My gen-
eration feels very American. We
can look around and choose, and
one of the things I chose was that
I wanted my kids to grow up with
a strong identity and have a sense
of a connection with Jews today
and Jews throughout history.
Now, she and her husband of
39 years, political writer Milton
Viorst, host a big seder during
Passover and participate in a
neighborhood Chanukah block
party each winter. The couple also
are members of Congregation
Adas Israel, a Conservative shul in--
Washington.
Her latest book, You're Officially A
Grown Up Now (Simon and Shuster;
$17), published this month, is filled
with common-sense tidbits of advice
told in Dr. Seuss-like rhymes. The
book is geared toward recent college
and high school graduates. A quick
read of poetic guidance, the text offers
sensible words to live by, like
adorable creature you may be, you
may not be everyone's cup of tea," and
"you'll try on this hat, and you'll try
on that role, and you'll learn what you
can and can never control."
"My father once said that my kids
are the best books I ever wrote,"
Viorst says, referring to her three sons.
"And I totally agree with him." LI

"