ACCLAIMING NORA

As the reality of another four years of Trump begins to set in, Robert McCrum suggests Nora Ephron’s comforting world of witty prose and whirlwind romances can help us through

- Robert McCrum

In the weeks since Donald Trump’s storming of democracy’s citadel, there have been expressions of dread, hand-wringing editorials, and stunned columns. One New Yorker friend of mine, a mother of two, fled to Montreal and checked into a firstclass hotel as the vote loomed. At the last count, she had taken to her bed with Netflix and room service, having switched off her phone. For all I know she’s still there.

In the weird catalogue of psephological panic, this is not exactly new. Many Americans suffered similar conniptions when George W Bush was elected in 2000. Several eminent literary figures swore to emigrate in protest, but very few actually upped sticks.

There is, of course, another view. Trump’s first term confirmed him to be one of the worst presidents in US history, although less sinister than fundamentally incompetent. He may be a vicious, far-right autocrat bent on revenge, but he’s also vain, lazy, ignorant, and often quasi-senile. America has known worse, though not often.

In these dire straits, I’m inclined to turn, for succour and counselling, to the free, liberal and uplifting spirits of the past, the great American romantics. I mean, why wouldn’t we want to smile through our tears? Why, for instance, wouldn’t we want to hear what Nora Ephron has to say?

The author of Heartburn, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and I Feel Bad About My Neck died too early from leukaemia (myelodysplastic syndrome) in 2012. Her ageless legacy in film and journalism, however, leaves many clues to the kind of witty and cold-eyed clarity on imminent existential dread that we might welcome just now.

Ephron’s gift, as a writer, was to anatomise and exploit an insouciant ownership of her everyday experience. As Ilana Kaplan puts it in