by Joanna Demkiewicz
Hey, Nora, are your ears burning?
In my world, Nora Ephron hasn’t really “gone away” (possibly because my desktop is Ephron’s famous “I’ll have what she’s having” scene), but she certainly has “resurfaced” as of late thanks to Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl, which is dedicated “To Nora,” and most recently, Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, out October 28.
In writing her first book, Poehler admits she “made many mistakes,” including keeping “a copy of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn next to me as a reminder of how to be funny and truthful, and all I ended up doing was ignoring my writing and rereading Heartburn.”
Writer Lydia Kiesling considers books like Dunham’s and Poehler’s, along with past ventures by Mindy Kahling and Tina Fey an “artistic inheritance” from Ephron in this Salon article, and I see her parallels. Poehler’s book is word-vomit confession after word-vomit confession, and I found I related to her, even when she was talking about wearing shoulder pads unironically. Some are calling it an autobiography, but it’s more than that. It’s a scrapbook, an advice column and a multi-media-esque package of lists (also an homage to Ephron), vintage photographs and footnotes.
Yes Please is thick, and I consider it coffee-table-book material, as well as bedstand-material for those moments when you crave that one chapter when she bitched out that guy on the airplane or that other chapter called “Humping Justin Timberlake.” It’s not stunning prose, by any means, but did you really think it would be? The genius of Yes Please, I think, is that it probably appeals to whoever read this article (in which the term “ladylike” is used, which is as outdated and creepy as “panties”), feminists, Leslie Knope-lovers and comedy nerds alike.
She writes about growing up in Boston with working class parents and slipping in the Jane Fonda workout VHS after school. She writes about all those waitressing jobs and when her friend’s mom died of cancer. She writes about dating in high school and how “you had to be hot but not a slut.” She writes about weird ‘80s pants. She writes about driving drunk and, like the majority of her anecdotes, steps outside of the story to acknowledge the reader: “Please don’t drive drunk, okay? Seriously. It’s so fucked up. But by all means, walk drunk. That looks hilarious. Everyone loves to watch someone act like they are trying to make it to safety during a hurricane.”
Ha. Right? Poehler’s good with jokes. There is a reoccurring joke that “writing a book is hard,” which admittedly becomes too familiar – too self-deprecating. But for those of you who are worried because I haven’t yet mentioned anything about SNL or the Upright Citizens Brigade or Parks and Recreation, don’t worry, it’s all there. Seth Meyers even makes an appearance in a guest essay. Tina Fey is there, and Maya Rudolph is there, and Bono gave her a hug one time and “Colin Farrell was super hungover and super nice” and “Jessica Simpson was the prettiest host I had ever seen without makeup.”
Poehler’s writing is her best, though, when she gets angry. When she gets angry, her funnywoman id goes out for a cigarette break. In one chapter, “I’m So Proud of You,” she recalls working with a producer who messed up the audio in a recorded speech. He asks her to do it again and she says no. It’s not her problem. He lingers and milks the stressfulness of the situation. “Can I give you a hug?” he asks.
When venting to friends, she says she didn’t let him hug her:
“I was a successful and independent woman! I was strong! I secretly disliked most new people! But I did let him hug me. I let that creepy guy hug me…All I was thinking at that moment was that if I let him hug me he would feel better and this would all be over soon. Do you think he would have hugged a male performer? Me neither. Either way, it never ends.”
After oiling us with expected humor and nostalgic anecdotes, we are open to her. That’s when she gives us the truth. The other parts, the parts when she can’t quite get there–like “My Books On Divorce,” where she avoids details about her divorce from Will Arnett by creating titles such as “DIVORCE: TEN WAYS TO NOT CATCH IT!” and “HEY LADY, I DON’T WANT TO FUCK YOUR HUSBAND!”–that’s where she gives us the funny. Nora would be proud.
[hr style=”striped”]
Joanna Demkiewicz is The Riveter‘s co-founder and co-editor. Find her on Twitter at @yanna_dem.
