We should have put her in our Pantheon long ago. In 1972, in her essay “A Few Words About Breasts”, she changed things for me and others who aspired to be writers and journalists. Why? It was the fun and moxie of her. And of course that killer last sentence of the now-famous Esquire piece no one will ever forget. Essayist. Funny Girl. Author. Screenwriter. Director. Mother. Role model for women and writers. She was, everyone learned in a flash, and then over and over again, much more than talented Carl Bernstein’s talented writer ex-wife. Too young, at 71, but what a life. LA Times obit here but none of the hundreds of pieces in last 24 hours really do it for me. Ephron was, in a sense, the classic comic. She was at heart a soldier, a survivor and brilliant essayist who could take her own pain, face it, learn from it, use it–and make us all feel more alive. And make both herself and us laugh about it a bit.
Nora/Meryl and Carl/Jack
