I think the only appropriate thing to read after a book heavily influenced by Nora Ephron is a collection written by Ms Ephron herself.
“The image of the journalist as wallflower at the orgy has been replaced by the journalist as the life of the party.”
Wallflower at the Orgy is a collection of articles Ephron wrote in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. You can tell that this collection was relevant when it was originally published but unfortunately the articles didn’t age well.
For the most part the content was just not engaging or relevant for a 2019 audience. Admittedly that isn’t hard to believe as I don’t know many people who read decades old magazines for their cultural relevance. Ephron was always an engaging, competent writer and while I struggled to connect with the material it is hard to deny her talent.
Ephron, in the 1980s, wrote brief introductions before reprinting her old articles in their entirety. It’s a bit of a lazy approach but she does a serviceable job of adding background to these otherwise small snippets of her work.
I think my favorite article was “Makeover: The Short, Unglamorous Saga of a New, Glamorous Me” which focuses on Ephron getting a makeover for an article hoping it will reinvigorate her life only to realize that what you see on film is not all it’s cracked up to be. I also enjoyed “Women’s Wear Daily: Unclothed” as well as her profile on Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown. If Wallflower inspired anything in me it would be to look into the life of Gurley Brown past the fifteen hundred or so words Ephron devoted to her. She seemed positively fascinating.
Overall, this is not the Ephron I would recommend. I’d look for her memoirs like I Feel Bad About My Neck or her famous work of fiction, Heartburn.
