Over the course of our year-and-a-half-long friendship, Nora introduced me to, in no particular order: several ear, nose, and throat doctors; the Patagonia jackets she favored when on set because they were “thinner than a sweater but warmer than a parka”; ordering multiple desserts and having small, reasonable bites of all of them (I thought, Oh, so this is what ladies do); the photography of Julius Shulman; the concept of eating lunch at Barneys; self-respect; the complex legend of Helen Gurley Brown; the Jell-O mold; her beloved sister Delia. She explained how to interact with a film composer (“Just say what you’re hearing and what you want to hear”) and what to do if someone screamed at you on the telephone (“Just nod, hang up, and decide you will never allow anyone to speak to you that way again”). She called bullshit on a whole host of things, too: donuts served in fancy restaurants; photo shoots in which female directors are asked to all stand in a cluster wearing mustaches; the idea that one’s writing isn’t fiction if it borrows from one’s life.Admittedly, my familiarity with Ephron's film work is limited, but I'd be lying if I said that Julie & Julia isn't one of the most viewed items on our MySky decoder. I do have a great deal of respect for a number of her essays, though. (Take a look at this hilarious Shouts & Murmurs piece.)
James Wolcott writes that her writing deserves more popular attention:
For all the fuss made over the importance of "voice" in writing, fact is, very few writers have a voice on the page that you can pick out of a crowd and Ephron had it, a casual-seeming conversational voice that (like Wilfrid Sheed's) seems easy to emulate until you actually try it and find yourself straightening out paper clips, sighing at the ceiling, stumped. For me this voice will always be associated with Ephron's early collections of personal journalism, Wallflower at the Orgy, Scribble Scribble, and Crazy Salad, which are so smart and enjoyable and seem not nearly as well known as, say, Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem and The White Album, which so many readers still consult whenever they feel a need to uncheer themselves down.
To many, the Nora Ephron they know burst through the drumskin with the novel Heartburn and the screenplay for When Harry Met Sally, and the Ephron who wrote the classic meditation on breasts and who divulged the bile and bad faith beneath the bon vivant-ism of Brendan Gill's memoir Here at the New Yorker is nowhere on their perception screen.
And no wonder. I was dumbfounded to discover when I checked Amazon this morning that not only are most of her early collections out of print but used copies are being peddled at eyepopping prices: I have the tatty paperback of Scribble Scribble packed away in one of my book boxes and look what it's fetching here, and if you're hunting for the edition of Crazy Salad that offers nine bonus articles, brace yourself, a new one'll run you $57 and up.