The Most of Nora Ephron

From The New York Times Book Review  “Nora Ephron was the person everybody wanted to hang out with, in part because she was funny and charming but more critically because she made the people she was with feel funny and charming . . . She was the one who listened and then finally tossed in the one fabulous line that brought everything together. Her best writing was exactly the same . . . It takes a particular combination of winning voice and brutal candor, of intimacy and objectivity, to turn what happens to you into a story that means something to the wider world . . . The Most of Nora Ephron gives her fans a chance to rummage through her desk . . . This is the kind of collection meant for snacking . . . She would want readers to meander, sampling things they had never tried or bits that look especially tasty. But I was surprised by how satisfying the big chunks are.” 

Nora Ephron died in June of 2012 and her obituary, also by the New York Times is beautifully written HERE

I can’t top either the NY Times review or their obituary, so please bear with me while I uncritically just gush – I love Nora Ephron – always have, always will.

You know the question — which people dead or alive would make up your perfect dinner party. Well Nora was, and is, always on my list.  I’ve read almost everything she wrote and adore her films – Sleepless in Seattle , You’ve got Mail and Julie and Julia, just to name a few…

A friend gave me this hefty volume of almost everything Nora Ephron wrote.  It’s been next to my reading chair ever since and I’ve been making my way through it little by little.

The volume divides her work by her professions:

The Journalist:  Nora’s early essays from the 1970’s and most of which I’d never read before.  Her essay Journalism: A Love Story overflows with her delight of landing a position at the Post and the legends she encountered — never jaded or blase – she had found her true passion and was greatly in awe of the profession.  The Palm Beach Social Pictorial is a hysterical send-up of a Palm Beach newspaper for which her friend, Liz Smith often wrote a column.  Nora recounts sections from the paper – the goings-on-about town, the ladies who lunch wearing diamonds with their tennis whites, the older women with their younger men and then this – “Bill Carter (now UN ambassador to UNICEF) proved he really does love children by bringing his latest airline hostess”.

The Advocate:  Includes her inspirational  commencement address to Wellesley class of 1996 – contrasting both the sea changes and the backward progression of women’s roles since she attended in 1962.  Imploring the class to break the rules and make some trouble on behalf of all women.

The Profiler:  It’s well worth reading each and every one of these essays — her intimate and often colorful portrayals of the significant women of her age, including Dorothy Parker, Jan Morris, Helen Gurley Brown and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.  Her parody of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo called Lisbeth Salander, The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut has been passed around among readers of the best-selling series.  If you’ve read any of Stieg Larsson series, you should read the essay HERE (Warning, like Larsson’s books – contains graphic language.)

The Novelist, The Playwright, The Screenwriter: Here this gargantuan book includes the full novel Heartburn, the play Lucky Man and the screenplay When Harry Met Sally.  I’ve already read Heartburn, dipped into Lucky Man but could not stick with it and skipped When Harry Met Sally (I couldn’t read it without replaying the film in my head).

The Foodie:  Nora appreciated food, the New York restaurant scene and the foodies in her life, but here she has to poke fun at it all. Some of her most giggle-worthy essays are in this section.  She reports straight-faced about the Pillsbury Bake Off — which makes the essay all the more funny and she rants about the absurdity of egg-white omelettes.

The Blogger:  Nora (see I feel like I can call her just Nora) was a blogger during the Bush/Cheney administration and her blog gave her full license to rant – with humor and political incorrectness.  Read it and cringe –or weep depending upon your politics.  Her blog also gave her license to finally reveal and confirm the identity of Deep Throat from the Watergate investigation…she self-righteously points out that she knew it all along, but wisely kept her mouth shut.

Personal:  This final section is the best with pieces taken from her other (much more lift-able) books of essays – I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing.  This section also includes my favorite essay Nora ever produced – called On Rapture, an essay about reading. You can read it HERE on Oprah.com  I had this essay ripped out of Oprah’s magazine where it first appeared, and in my reading nook for years.   In On Rapture Nora recounts her delight reading  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michal Chabon which I promptly read and was (like Nora) simply transported away – please add it to your reading list.  Another essay in this section, Considering the Alternative talks about death, dying and the loss of her dear friend.  “I want to talk to her. I want to have lunch with her. I want her to give me a book she just read and loved. She is my phantom limb, and I can’t believe I’m here without her.”  True confession time – a few tears slipped down my cheeks.

The final two essays are lump-in-your-throat reading, as by this time Nora (and only one or two others) knew of her diagnosis.

What I Won’t Miss:  Dry skin, Email, Bras, Fox (News), Small Print

What I Will Miss:  Waffles, The concept of Waffles, Fireworks, Laughs, My Kids, Dinner with Friends, Pie

I totally enjoyed this book and am very grateful to have it.  (The full length novel, screenplay, and play notwithstanding).  The Most of Nora Ephron will have its hefty place on my shelves, for awhile at least.  I may need to go back and re-read certain essays.  Also, I know I’ll be talking with someone and say – “oh but Nora wrote the best essay on that…here let me get it for you”.  That’s Nora for you.

If you want the collection of most everything Nora has written and you’ve been lifting weights – then this is the book for you. Otherwise go for her books of her most recent essays I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing.

OK I’m done gushing – I just love Nora Ephron and she would have a place of honor at my imaginary dinner party…along with

Ruth Reichel, John Adams, Julia Child, Eddie Izzard, Deborah Cavendish (the Duchess of Devonshire), Dame Judi Dench, Sir John Gielgud, Paula Poundstone, Molly Ivins, Maryalice Fischer, Pat Conroy, Maggie Smith, Jane Heath Donohue…and others.

My cast of characters may change over time, but Nora will always be on the list.