Nora Ephron: A Biography (U)

Nora Ephron was one of the most popular, accomplished, and beloved writers in American journalism and film. Nora Ephron: A Life is the first biography to tell the story of the Manhattan-born girl who was born to screenwriter parents but who forged a path of her own, earning accolades and adoration from critics and fans alike. Author Kristin Marguerite Doidge explores the tremendous successes and disappointing failures Ephron sustained in her professional career and examines the private life she tried to keep in balance with her insatiable ambition. Nora lived not one, not two, but what seemed like four different lives in a career that spanned five decades of smart, successful writing in nearly every medium: magazines, essays, movies, plays, books, and even blogs. Based on rare archival research and more than thirty interviews with some of Ephron's closest friends, family, collaborators, adversaries, and colleagues conducted over more than five years--as well as numerous interviews Ephron herself gave throughout her career--award-winning journalist and cultural critic Doidge has written a captivating story of the life of a creative writer whose passion for the perfect one-liner and ferocious drive to succeed revolutionized journalism, comedy, and film. It is also the first in-depth biography to consider and explore the complex themes that ran through Nora's work and to examine why so many of them still grab our attention today.