I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts On Being a Woman | Nora Ephron (Knopf)
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But Ephron has missed the politics of her neck. Necks are important, she says, because they reveal age the way faces and hair, which can be Botoxed and dyed, respectively, don’t. “Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth. You have to cut open a redwood tree to see how old it is, but you wouldn’t have to if it had a neck.” She’s clever and fun, but nowhere does she talk about the gender of wrinkles, about how jowls and creases, like graying temples and permanently furrowed brows, give a man gravitas. Think of Walter Cronkite. What he regrets is not his neck, but having retired too early.
“A Few Words About Breasts”–first published in 1972 and reprinted in Ephron’s celebrated 1975 collection, Crazy Salad–isn’t overtly political, but it explores, among other issues, the effects of growing up a tomboy in the 50s. It’s also amusing and outrageous, especially when she quotes her busty would-be mother-in-law, who advises her to get on top during sex so her breasts will look bigger. Ephron is struggling in this piece, and not just with her chest. It’s a battle of mind over matter, and mind is losing. She has heard the laments of larger-breasted women who say she’s lucky. “I have thought about their remarks,” she concludes, “tried to put myself in their place, considered their point of view. I think they are full of shit.” The title piece in the new book ends similarly: “I honestly do understand just what matters
Ephron does look, and what’s more, she revises. She gets manicures and pedicures, has eyebrow and lip hair removed, tries Botox, gets something done to her teeth that requires $20,000, and continues to seek a skin cream that works. She gets her hair done twice a week, she says, because she can’t handle a blow-dryer. And she dyes. Everyone on the coasts dyes.
A layer is missing–of self-scrutiny, emotion, or reportage, at which she used to excel.
