JOIN USThe heroine of her life
Nora Ephron was an intern in the JFK White House. And as she puts it in one of the essays in her non-fiction collection, I Feel Bad About My Neck, probably the “only young woman in the Kennedy White House who the president did not make a pass at.” Oh, and she and the other interns had no desks to sit at and no typewriters, so they just roamed the halls and
helped out by releasing politicians from rooms where they inadvertently got trapped in.
I Feel Bad About My Neck was published in 2006 and is a compilation of pieces that had appeared in publications like The New Yorker, Vogue and The New York Times. Those who’ve watched Ephron’s films — and there are very few movie-lovers who wouldn’t be familiar with classics like When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle — will instantly recognise her voice as they read the book. That wry, wise tone that shone through in those films is very much present here as she talks about ageing and the challenges women go through as they deal with menopause, wrinkles and children flying out of the nest.
One of my favourite essays in this book is about Ephron’s lifelong obsession with cooking and food. Titled Serial Monogamy: A Memoir, Ephron charts her love of cookbooks and food writers. Her culinary liaisons (as she called them) often kept pace with the real life ups and downs she went through. In here too, is her love for Julia Child; and as you read it, you
realise that no one else could have written and directed Julia & Julia, her film about the chef who brought the fine art of French cooking to American homes.
Rear-window spying
Ephron passed away in 2012. The other day, my sister and I were wondering what she’d be doing if she were still alive and stuck in her New York apartment during the lockdown and we both arrived at the same conclusion — she’d be cooking up a storm on Instagram and would probably write something funny and sharp for The New Yorker about it. She would also be doing some rear-window spying on her neighbours and making razor sharp and profound observations on the human spirit.
While on the surface, there’s a lightness to the prose in this book — and all her works — there’s an undertow of sadness as well. Ephron didn’t have an easy life (though it looked delectable from a distance). She famously skewered her first marriage in her novel Heartburn — a modern classic. But even as she tore down — in her ruminative way — a cruel
culture that places a heavy burden on women to conform to societal expectations, she wasn’t completely cynical.
What I Wish I’d Known, which appears towards the end of this book, is a perfect list of commandments for any woman to follow as she navigates modern life. “You can order more
than one dessert,” Saint Nora advises. And really, who can argue with that?
The author is a Bangalore-based writer and communications professional with many published short stories and essays to her credit.
That One Book is a fortnightly column that does exactly what it says — takes up one great classic and tells you why it is (still) great. Come, raid the bookshelves with us.