Smart Women, by Judy Blume (Putnam, 316 pp., $15.95)
Judy Blume’s third novel for grownups (she has also written 13 highly successful juveniles) is an astringent chronicle of the Age of the Second Marriage, Colorado Division. The protagonist is a forty-year-old divorcee who falls in love with the ex-husband of a close friend, thus precipitating nervous breakdowns, a general collapse of domestic tranquillity, and—rather unexpectedly but quite convincingly—a happy ending. Miss Blume is no Alison Lurie, but she has a pleasingly cold eye for the lurid details of life among the hot tubs; not surprisingly, she includes several effective scenes told from the point of view of the adolescent daughters of the divorcees in question. Less pleasing is the apparent absence of any clearly developed sense of morality on the part of any of the characters; Miss Blume is a very discreet narrator, and one inevitably wonders exactly what she thinks of these smart women and their bright, empty lives. Still Smart Women is a promising piece of work—especially considering that it came from the typewriter of the woman who wrote The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo.
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