The Reluctant Reader: Thoughts On Remembering & Recipes

I finished Nora Ephron’s memoir, I Remember Nothing, while eating the last few french fries from the bottom of a greasy bag, sitting at an old dining table in a tiny convenience store, in a town in East Texas not much bigger than the store itself.

It was a chilly night on an otherwise very warm day in February.

My fountain Coke was perfect.

And I wished there was pie as I read the last few pages.

Ephron mentioned dessert a lot in her final chapters, but if you know me at all you’ll know that’s hardly the only reason I was craving pie.

Some of my best moments, memories have always involved fountain drinks and pie.

I feel like Ephron could have appreciated* that, and that’s one of the reasons I so enjoyed her book.

 

 

I’ve mentioned before that I tend to be deeply affected by the writing “voices” of other writers when I read. (The same way I emulate accents when I speak with people on the phone.)

But writing this review I feel less like I’m emulating Ephron’s writing style, and more like I’m trying to extend a conversation with a very old friend.

In fact, I think that’s why it took me so long to finish what was actually a very short, uncomplicated book.

I wanted it to last a little longer, the way I felt about those stray fries in the bottom of the bag; I kept hoping there’d be just one more.

 

Reading Ephron’s last memoir (this was her sixth memoir, and ended up being her last*) I was surprised how much we seemed to have had in common. Especially considering how unfathomably more wealthy, successful, and connected she was. We really seemed to be similarly-minded, at least about the stuff that matters (internet word games, egg whites, email, meatloaf, and having spinach in our teeth).

Basically, she’s a woman I would have very much liked to have lunched with, some place super nice if she had offered to pick up the tab.

 

For those of you thinking Ephron is a very familiar name, but unsure why you’ve heard of her, she was an incredibly witty writer best known not for her books, but for her charming and fairly gender-neutral romantic movies.

She wrote/cowrote the screenplay for Julie & Julia, When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail and my personal favorite (of hers) Sleepless in Seattle.

You’ll remember that movie from back when Meg Ryan was impossibly likable and when Rosie O’Donnell was still very much in the closet. (And those are just the kind of reflections Ephron’s memoir is filled with; though those particular observations are my own.)

 

Ephron actually began her career in journalism (something else she and I have in common, if you use the term “journalism” pretty liberally).

Only instead of covering county fairs and Chamber of Commerce ribbon cuttings, she spent her twenties meeting The Beatles and Eleanor Roosevelt.

What’s amazing, however, is if you had asked her about either occasion she’d have had little to say.

The entire book is a charmingly roundabout way of letting people know that her memories were both fuzzy and fleeting.

The title says it all, “I remember nothing.” And the entire book serves as culpatory evidence; she really had forgotten a lot.

 

Only the other half of that truth is that Ephron still remembered quite a bit too. It just wasn't the stuff people might have expected.

 

She didn’t remember what Mrs. Roosevelt wore the day she met her, for instance. But she remembered she got very lost on the way to see the former first lady.

And what were the Beatles like, when she saw them perform on the Ed Sullivan show? She couldn't recall; what she could tell you is that their fans were obnoxiously loud. (I can only imagine.)

 

Lots of people would be upset if their recollections were whittled down to such seemingly random tidbits. But I was fascinated by them and charmed by Ephron’s unique brand of scatterbrained storytelling. (Two chapters are simply lists. Carefully edited, very comical lists.)

 

In a way Ephron’s memoir is like validation to me. Either affirmation that it’s okay for my memory to work the way it does – focused in on tiny, almost ridiculous details - or at the very least that I’m not alone in my weirdness. (That’s always comforting!)

But absurd memories aren’t the only things to be taken from this essay collection.

 

Cooking enthusiasts will appreciate her frequent use of food-related stories, and the addition of a few promising recipes.

Old movie fans will appreciate the name-dropping she does, having grown up with parents that were in the movie business during Hollywood’s golden age.

Liberals will appreciate her little shots at the right, woven humorously into otherwise non-political stories.

And history buffs (and feminists) will appreciate Ephron’s career past, something worth noting.

 

Ephron worked at little-known publications like Newsweek and The New York Post back when most women were looked at as office accessories.

After graduating from Wellesley she was hired as a mail girl, then quickly worked her way up the ranks to eventually become a reporter at the Post. (A job she landed after writing for a spoof paper, The New York Pest, I might add.)

 

She went on to become a freelance writer, a wife, a humorist, a divorcee, a screenplay writer, a director, a mom, and a lot more. All of which she covers in I Remember Nothing with self-deprecating candor and grace. 

And it can't be easy to cover that much ground - failed marriages, movie flops, Christmas party catastrophes and hair loss - with tact, much less humor, but Ephron does. And it's enviable.

And it makes me appreciate some of her finest films that much more (knowing she worked for them).

 

Of all that Ephron’s memoir has to offer, though, I still feel like the underlying beauty of it is the artful combination of absurd little details. 

I Remember Nothing is like peeking into a personal scrapbook, just one that happened to belong to a trailblazer.

She was a journalist at heart, a storyteller, an accomplished home cook, and a woman that not only brought some classic stories to the screen, but one that influenced a whole slew of female writers/comedians/ingénues to follow suit.

 

I’m thankful to Ephron for creating Sleepless in Seattle, but I'm even more thankful for all the wonderful stories her work has inspired (most recently on The Mindy Project, which is constantly drawing from Ephron’s style of classic rom-com storytelling).

And I realize now, after spending way too much time drafting this "silly" review, that she's inspired me too, to keep telling my own stories. The silly and absurd ones. The funny and the tragic ones. And the ones horribly skewed by my own strange perspective.

 

If you’re looking for a funny, random collection of essays, recollections, I think you’ll enjoy I Remember Nothing.

But if what you really need is a nudge to start capturing your own funny, poignant memories, consider this your gentle kick in the butt.

Go do it now friend. Before you forget!

 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bread pudding recipe to try, and at least a dozen personal stories I need to pen myself. 

Happy weekending to you friends. Don't forget to document the good stuff.