Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon is a 1968 novel by Marjorie Kellogg, her first and most famous work. She also wrote the screenplay for the film directed by Otto Preminger in 1970, starring Liza Minelli, Ken Howard and Robert Moore. If you are a fan of the quirky, independent stories that highlighted the Seventies in films and novels, like Midnight Cowboy, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Sterile Cuckoo, and Harold and Maude, you will find this a charming classic. When I finished it, I opened the front cover and read it again.
It doesn't get more original than the character of Junie Moon (that was her real name), a stringy oddball of a young girl whose abusive boyfriend threw acid on her one night. The doctors have done as much as they can for her disfigured face, and her twisted arm is missing a few fingers. She lives in a facility with Warren, a wheelchair bound paraplegic who was shot in the back as a teenager, by his friend whom he made a pass at. Arthur is the third amigo, with an undiagnosable progressive neurological disease which gives him a stuttering walk, his uncontrolled arms flailing. As they are as rehabilitated as they are ever going to be, Warren proposes they rent a house together as roommates. Maybe he can get a job, or as much as they hate charity, they can live on welfare for a while. This they do, and encounter the many problems all roommates find at first. "We'd better not have any scatter rugs in our house," says Warren as Arthur lurches about. Aside from being on the fringe of the community, they befriend the local Fishmonger, who is quite lonely too. They might think they accept exactly who they are, but they end up learning a lot about each other, and find their way - even take off on a beachside adventure holiday. Yes, they have challenges - no-one needs to tell them that - and have adapted with a combination of drive and black humour. Soon, their differences fade and become non-issues.
Kellogg's writing is insightful and honest. People might turn in disgust seeing Junie Moon, or be at a loss dealing with a spastic and a paraplegic, but the friends look beyond that and support each other, and as their friendships grow, you will too.
Kellogg was a social worker in New York City and also wrote a screenplay for The Bell Jar.
I saw this first as the film. This was Liza's second role after the acclaimed The Sterile Cuckoo, (another great novel/film which was a box-office hit and earned her an Oscar nomination). Junie Moon didn't do so well, but does feature great acting from Liza and Ken Howard (more controlled here as the romantic lead than in the novel), and also offers up an unusually positive 1970's gay role for Warren, certainly more flamboyant than in the book, but natural and another among this story's non-issues.
Liza's third film was Cabaret, and that was that.
Personally, I love this book, and think it's a gem.
1968 / Hardcover / 222 pages
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