Nora Ephron – A Writer Worth Remembering

Nora Ephron is one of those writers who I've known about for years and yet I’ve never got around to reading – until recently, that is, when I breezed through her final essay collection, entitled I Remember Nothing. When I say breeze, I mean breeze, as I finished the book in less than two hours and was left wanting more.

Ephron is known primarily as a screenwriter who wrote such popular films as When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, Julie and Julia, and others. She got her start in the writing business working as a journalist at Newsweek and the New York Post. 

In I Remember Nothing, Ephron recounts a series of anecdotes about her life and career. Her writing style is witty, intelligent and laugh-out-loud funny (her humour is quite self-deprecating). She is one of those writers who could, and did, transform the sad and tragic elements of her life into cinematic drama, often into comedy.

In this slim collection, Ephron has plenty to say about the aging process, and the deterioration of the mind and body once a person hits a certain age. At 69, she finds herself forgetting people’s names at parties, lamenting the breakdown of specific body parts, and fearing more of the same in the years ahead (sadly, Ephron passed away on June 26, 2012.)

In I Remember Nothing, Ephron takes on other subjects with humour and empathy, including computer games, being addicted to computer games, inheritance, professional failure, Christmas dinners, meat loaf, and going to the movies. I particularly enjoyed this observation about divorce:

"Of course, there are good divorces, where everything is civil, even friendly. Child support payments arrive. Visitations take place on schedule. Your ex-husband rings the doorbell and says on the other side of the threshold; he never walks in without knocking and helps himself to the coffee. In my next life I must get one of those divorces." 

My feeling at the end of I Remember Nothing is that I wish it contained more stories, more anecdotes, and more commentary on life. But there are other essay collections by Nora Ephron, and I will eagerly seek them out because she is worth reading, and worth remembering.

A Hell of a Woman is a hell of a ride

A Hell of a Woman, a novel by Jim Thompson (originally published in 1954)

Reprinted by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition (1984)

Jim Thompson (1906 – 1977) is a suspense writer who produced his best work during a prolific period between 1952 and 1955. Among the stories written during that time was A Hell of a Woman, which contains all of the classic noir elements of a Thompson novel: a sociopath narrator, plenty of hairpin plot turns, coarse language and the seedy underbelly of American life after World War II.

Part of the joy of a Jim Thompson novel is the rapid plot turns, and the language, which is harsh and crude. In A Hell of a Woman, Frank Dillon is a down-on-his-luck, door-to-door salesman during the 50s who plans to rescue a beautiful young woman from the clutches of her elderly aunt and steal $100,000 from the older woman. Frank’s internal dialogue is like a roller coaster ride of unfiltered thoughts. Here is Frank's initial description of the elderly aunt:

“The door flew open while I was still beating on it. I took one look around at this dame and moved back fast. It wasn’t the young one, the haunted-looking babe I’d seen peering through the curtains. This was an old biddy with a beak like a hawk and close-set, mean little eyes. She was about seventy – I don’t know how anyone could have got that ugly in less than seventy years – but she looked plenty hale and hearty. She was carrying a heavy cane, and I got the impression that she was all ready to use it. On me.” 

A Hell of a Woman is a wild romp of a story that has more twists and turns than a demolition derby, and is full of nasty surprises. You’ll often find yourself laughing out loud as Frank’s hapless scheme unravels with horrific and deadly consequences.

If A Hell of A Woman is your first introduction to Jim Thompson, you won’t be disappointed. Other Thompson novels that I’ve read (and recommend) include: The Killer Inside Me, Pop. 1280, Savage Night and The Grifters.

An absorbing memoir by Gore Vidal

Point to Point Navigation by Gore Vidal

Published in 2006, Vintage Books (A Division of Random House, Inc.)

In Gore Vidal’s second memoir, Point to Point Navigation, the late playwright Tennessee Williams is quoted in a letter to a friend commenting on Vidal’s third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948). Says Williams: “There is not really a distinguished line in the book and yet a great deal of it has a curious life-like quality.”

This sentence could not more accurately sum up my impression of Vidal’s Point to Point Navigation, a disjointed and uneven memoir that could have benefited from a bit more planning and editing, but whose journey is completely absorbing. The book is, at times, acerbic, gossipy, erratic and discursive, but it’s vintage Vidal.

Throughout his long and productive life as a novelist, essayist, and a screenwriter for stage, TV and film, Vidal was a dedicated self-promoter who never shied away from cameras or controversy. He understood the power of media and used it extensively to promote his views about history, politics, academia, sexuality and religion.

Vidal also understood the power of celebrity in our star-obsessed culture, and in Point to Point Navigation, he serves up a glittering tapestry of famous people whom he knew and befriended throughout his life, including Truman Capote, Greta Garbo, Rudolph Nureyev, Paul Newman, Tennessee Williams, the Kennedys, Johnny Carson and Francis Ford Coppola.

Throughout the writing of Point to Point Navigation, Vidal must have been aware that his time was running out (he died on July 31, 2012). A year prior to starting this memoir, he had lost his long-time partner, Howard Austen, to cancer. The pain of that loss, combined with a lingering sense of his own mortality, gives the book a sense of gloominess and poignancy. Interestingly, many of his recollections about famous people are focused on, or near, the end of their lives as well.

Is this a book for everyone? No. If you are acquainted with Gore Vidal’s work (particularly his historical novels or his essays), then I would recommend Point to Point Navigation, but read Palimpsest first. This slim memoir should not serve as an entry-point, but rather as complement to, Vidal’s many works of fiction and non-fiction.

It’s not hyperbole to declare that Vidal was one of the finest prose stylists of the 20^th century, and for the true Vidal aficionado, this book is a fitting end to a remarkable literary career that spanned six and a half decades. 

Touching The Void offers plenty of white-knuckle thrills

Touching The Void, originally published in 1988 (Jonathan Cape).

In 1985, two young British adventurers (Joe Simpson and Simon Yates) set out to climb one of the toughest mountains in South America – the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. Touching The Void is Joe Simpson's version of their attempt to scale the west face of the mountain, which had never been done before. Their story has become a classic of mountaineering literature. It's a powerful tale of ambition, friendship, and the indomitable will to survive in the face of impossible odds. Simpson's writing is clear, focused and non-technical, and his rich eye for detail will leave readers on the edge of their seats.

Two thumbs way up!

Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business To Everyone

If you have ever asked yourself how digital marketing and social media can impact your life and career, then get a copy of Six Pixels of Separation and read it.

Although the book was published in 2009, most of the strategies Joel espouses in Six Pixels of Separation are still relevant today. Using a plain, non-technical writing style, Joel describes the many online tools and platforms that companies could be taking advantage of to improve their businesses and fortunes.

One of the recurring themes in this book is the importance of developing a digital marketing strategy and following through with it. Patience is indeed a virtue in the online world. Too many participants of social media give up after they realize it requires some work and effort to remain actively engaged with their online communities.

Joel shares personal anecdotes about his own business career, where writing blog posts, recording podcasts and speaking at industry events have paid off handsomely for him. Anyone or any business, he suggests, can do the same.

I particularly liked this quote from the book: "As we build our personal brands through digital channels, it is incumbent on us to know the types of people who benefit with our brand and what we are doing and, on a daily basis, to engage with those types of people."

The Custodian of Paradise

The Custodian of Paradise (Vintage Canada, 2006) is a sequel to Wayne Johnston’s masterful The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Set mostly in St. John’s, Newfoundland in the early decades of the 20^th century, the story opens with Sheilagh Fielding, the story’s narrator, preparing to travel alone to a remote island off the coast of Newfoundland.

What would bring a woman to seek isolation in such an uninhabited place? As is soon revealed, Fielding needs a form of seclusion to reflect on her life and write her story, a story that is heavily weighted in sadness, tragedy and misfortune. But in Wayne Johnston’s deft hands, that sadness and tragedy are beautifully and expertly told; the most wrenching moments never become oppressive or maudlin.

Without giving away too much away, the 14 year-old Fielding is traumatized by an incident that will ultimately shape the rest of her life. With a six foot one frame, a disfigured foot, and a penchant for drink, Sheilagh Fielding is regarded by others as something of a freak – unwanted, unloved, scorned and ridiculed at every turn. Her most powerful weapon in fighting against the cruelty of others and as an outlet for her pain is a ferocious intellect, a razor sharp wit and an extraordinary talent for writing.

At an early age, Fielding finds an outlet for her pain and daemons as a newspaper columnist, where she succeeds in chiding, poking and mocking the establishment in all its hypocrisy, intolerance, bigotry and pettiness. Where a scrappy and ambitious Joey Smallwood (former Premier of Newfoundland) was the central figure and narrator in Colony, in this tale he appears at different points in Fielding’s life, always ready to verbally spar with his worthy adversary. The witty repartee between Smallwood and Fielding almost jumps off the pages.

The novel weaves back and forth between the present (on Loreburn island) and the past through personal recollections, letters and diary entries. Johnston does a superb job piecing Fielding’s story together, in language that is rich in detail and pleasing to the ear, with just enough suspense thrown in to keep readers engaged.

One of the central themes is the idea of revenge and the impact it has on those who aim to inflict it, and those unfortunate enough to be caught up in its collateral damage. In one of the letters written by a secret “Provider,” whose identity is withheld until the end, there are these poignant lines: “There comes a point when spite is an end in itself. When bitterness somehow sustains and enervates the soul.”

The Custodian of Paradise contains many such nuggets. This is one of those novels whose voices, images and drama will stay with me for a long time – and it deserves to be read.

An enthralling book: A Confederacy of Dunces

The online magazine/blog Boing Boing has asked friends to write an essay about a book that was enthralling, a book that “captivated them and carried them into the world within its pages, making them ignore the world around them.”

Though Boing Boing’s invitation wasn’t extended to me, I couldn’t resist the temptation to recount one of the best books I’ve ever read, a book that was nothing less than enthralling: “A Confederacy of Dunces,” the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by John Kennedy Toole.

I discovered a paperback version of the novel quite by accident in an antique store when I first arrived in London, England in 1984. After the opening paragraph, I was hooked:

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly’s supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person’s lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one’s soul.

Ignatius J. Reilly is a lumbering, slothful, 300-pound young man who lives with his widowed mother in New Orleans. Due to circumstances, he must find a job, and the novel tells the story of his failed and often hilarious attempts to find gainful employment and to understand his life.

An educated man, Reilly makes clear in his conversations, letters and journal entries that he disdains the contemporary world of pop culture and its “lack of theology and geometry.” He complains about everything and everyone. He bounces from one improbable situation to the next, encountering characters who are loveable and unforgettable, especially his so-called love interest, Myrna Minkoff, whom Reilly refers to as “the minx.”

I spent an entire day holed up inside a hotel room reading “Confederacy,” while I should have been out looking for work and a place to live. It was a completely indulgent activity to shirk more pressing obligations, and yet something about Ignatius J. Reilly’s flawed character, his wildly distorted worldview and his comic misadventures struck a nerve and kept me glued to the pages.

Though I’ve only read “Confederacy” once, the novel has had a lasting impact on me. Perhaps it’s time (some 30 years later) to get reacquainted with Ignatius J. Reilly and to see how this extraordinary tale holds up after all these years.