The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.

I have yet to read a novel by Nora Ephron – mainly because her work is catorised as ‘chic lit’ and I don’t generally read chic lit. The films she is responsible for are also ‘chic’ films and, although enjoyable, they also are not really my thing. But I am getting old and in recent years Ephron has been writing about the aging process from a womans point of view so she has seeped into my consiousness. Ephron is an interesting woman.

Wiki:

Ephron was born in New York City, eldest of four daughters in a Jewish family, and grew up in Beverly Hills;[1] her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were both East Coast-born and screenwriters. Her sisters Delia and Amy are also screenwriters. Her sister Hallie Ephron is a journalist, book reviewer, and novelist who writes crime fiction. Ephron's parents based Sandra Dee's character in the play and the Jimmy Stewart film Take Her, She's Mine on their 22-year-old daughter Nora and her letters to them from college. Both became alcoholics during their declining years. She has been married three times. Her first marriage, to writer Dan Greenburg, ended in divorce after nine years. Her second was to journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame in 1976. Ephron had an infant son, Jacob, and was pregnant with her second son, Max, in 1980 when she found out that of Bernstein was having an affair with their mutual friend, married British politician Margaret Jay. Ephron was inspired by the events to write the 1983 novel Heartburn, which was made into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. In the book, Ephron wrote of a husband named Mark, who was “capable of having sex with a Venetian blind.” She also said that the character Thelma (based on Margaret Jay) looked like a giraffe with "big feet. Ephron has been married for more than 20 years to screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi and lives in New York City.

Ephron has been in the news this week because her latest book 'I Remember Nothing' http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40074698/ns/today-books has caused some debate. Alex Baldwin, the actor, has alledgedly had a swipe at Ephron and what he sees as her failure to move on after a messy divorce (her second, the first being as painless as a divorce can be).

The Guardian:

Is Nora Ephron the secret target of Alec Baldwin's attack on a divorcee?

The actor Alec Baldwin appears to have launched an attack on Oscar-winning director and writer Nora Ephron in online magazine the Huffington Post, to which they both contribute.

Earlier this week, Baldwin wrote a comment piece for the Huffington Post's divorce section extolling the virtues and health benefits of forgiving and forgetting messy settlements. The article referred to a friend of his, "Cal", the victim of what Baldwin sees as a continued campaign of malice from an ex-wife, "Dora", despite their having separated 30 years ago, and both being happily remarried and thereafter enjoying great professional success. Many have suggested these are lightly veiled references to Ephron and her ex-husband, the journalist Carl Bernstein, who had an affair with Margaret (later Baroness) Jay when Ephron was pregnant with their second son. She subsequently adapted the events into a novel, Heartburn, which was made into a successful film in 1986 starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Now married to Nicholas Pileggi – the screenwriter behind Goodfellas – Ephron recently published a new memoir that touches on the incident, I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections, an extract from which ran in the Huffington Post on 8 November. It largely concerns the damaging impact of her divorce and her continued pain over the episode. In his piece, Baldwin makes reference to his own difficult separation (from his ex-wife, Kim Basinger), his "life-shortening custody battle" and the book he subsequently wrote about "the iniquities of family law, particularly in California". But Baldwin says he has now come to terms with the trauma, unlike "Cal's ex-wife [who] seems to have a condition that, sadly, you often see in high conflict divorces. She simply cannot shut up about her anger, her betrayal, her unresolved feelings, and her bottomless contempt for her ex, who has been a devoted and great father to their two wonderful children."

Baldwin heard a very different message from Ephrons words than I did. Maybe he is a friend of Bernstein? Yes, I too heard how hurt she was by her husbands ultimate betrayal. How the hurt continued to escalate as they both (but Bernstein in particular) handled the situation very badly. She says to her interviewer 'I mention all this so you will understand that this is part of the process: once you find out he's cheated on you, you have to keep finding it out, over and over and over again, until you've degraded your­self so completely that there's nothing left to do but walk out.' Her next comments, 'Now I think, of course, I think, who can possibly be faithful when they're young? I think, Stuff happens,' And, 'my religon is - get over it'. Does this sound like a bitter, angry woman? Not to me.

Here are some of her 'quotes':

'He was, in his way, as close to a Zen master as I've ever had, and all of us who fell under his influence began with his style and eventually ended up with our own.'

'Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.'

'Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficity disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.'

'In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.'

'I have no desire to be dominated. Honestly I don't. And yet I find myself becoming angry when I'm not.'

'Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it.'

These quotes are my thoughts. I wish they had sprung from my lips.

The Mail had the following article today:

Does divorce make you a better wife second time round?
By Tessa Cunningham and Eve Ahmed

Does suffering the pain of divorce mean you will try harder to make your next marriage work and, therefore, be a better wife? In her new book, I Remember Nothing, Nora ­Ephron, writer and director behind such films as When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless In ­Seattle, claims this is true.

There follows interviews with two twice married women, one who agrees with this premise and the other who doesn't. I suppose proof is in the pudding although I suspect the one who thinks she has learned from her mistakes will find out one day that she hasn't.

I may have blogged before that only one of my friends is happily married. It seems I was wrong.

None of them are.