Bob's Home Library
Summary:
Reading these succinct, razor-sharp essays by veteran
humorist (I Feel Bad About My Neck), novelist, and
screenwriter-director Ephron is to be reminded that she cut her
teeth as a New York Post writer in the 1960s, as she recounts
in the most substantial selection here, "Journalism: A Love
Story." Forthright, frequently wickedly backhanded, these
essays cover the gamut of later-life observations (she is 69),
from the dourly hilarious title essay about losing her memory,
which asserts that her ubiquitous senior moment has now become
the requisite Google moment, to several flimsy lists, such as
"Twenty-five Things People Have a Shocking Capacity to Be
Surprised by Over and Over Again," e.g., "Movies have no
political effect whatsoever." Shorts such as the several "I
Just Want to Say" pieces feature Ephron's trademark prickly
contrariness and are stylistically digestible for the tabloids.
Other essays delve into memories of fascinating people she
knew, such as the Lillian Hellman of Pentimento, whom she
adored until the older woman's egomania rubbed her the wrong
way. Most winning, however, are her priceless reflections on
her early life, such as growing up in Beverly Hills with her
movie-people parents, and how being divorced shaped the bulk of
her life, in "The D Word." There's an elegiac quality to many
of these pieces, handled with wit and tenderness. (Nov.)
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