Nora Ephron has enjoyed success on several fronts as a writer. She's written novels, movies, magazine articles, and plays. She wrote
When Harry Met Sally and
Sleepless in Seattle, two romantic comedies that did very well at the box office. She authored
Heartburn, a novel that effectively tells the story of the breakup of her second marriage (to Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame).
I Remember Nothing is a collection of essays, similar in tone to what she presented in
I Feel Bad About My Neck. Such tongue-in-cheek titles definitely catch readers' eyes as they browse bookshelves.
The first essay in
I Remember Nothing will have readers laughing uproariously as they go through Ephron's chronicle of events, people, places, and things she can no longer recall. Other chapters cover a wide range of subjects. She describes, for example, her infatuation with online Scrabble. She couldn't get enough of playing Scrabble Blitz on the computer. She tells of how she insisted on making and bringing dessert to annual Christmas dinners, even when no one ate any of one dessert--plum pudding--except for her. In yet another chapter, she lists famous people she once met, but today cannot remember a thing about her encounter with them. She devotes a chapter to her Aruba. That's the name she uses to refer to a bald spot in the crown of her head.
Anyone familiar with Ephron's life story will appreciate how she can now breezily describe events in her life that once were tremendous sources of pain. She gives an overview of her three marriages. Her first two ended in divorce. But her third, to Nicholas Pileggi, has lasted for over 20 years. She also mentions the trials and tribulations of coping with erratic behavior by her alcoholic parents, writers themselves who early on enjoyed success in Hollywood. Ephron, along with her three sisters, grew up there.
In her inimitable, humorous style, Ephron regales readers with details about her life over the years.