HALLIE EPHRON: My dad was a decidedly mixed bag. The youngest of four boys,
no doubt treated like a little prince, he grew up popular (president of his senior
class at Evander Childs high school in the Bronx). He was a snaggle-toothed charmer. He loved to entertain wearing a plaid silk dinner jacket and, in his old age, an ascot to hide his sagging chin. A raconteur, he told endless stories about Broadway and Hollywood (he wrote plays and movies with my mom). And then he'd tell them again and again.
A ladies’ man. Too much of a ladies’ man. A narcissist. A chain smoker. A drunk.
But always, always, he was besotted with his four daughters. We were beautiful, smart, funny: just ask him! And that unabashed love papered over some of his shortcomings.
I have four writing sisters, and he’s appeared in all of our books. He’s the model for Arthur Unger who gets murdered in the opening chapter of my novel, Night Night, Sleep Tight.
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Arthur Unger slides open the glass door and steps out onto his flagstone patio. He’s had a few drinks but he doesn’t feel them. It’s late at night, and though the sky is clear and there is no moon, there are no stars, either. There never are. Between ambient light and air pollution, he’d have to drive to Mount Baldy to see Orion’s Belt.
The sky is . . . He gazes up at it. Opaque? Inky? Like warm tar? His ex-wife would have nailed it. She was great at narrative description and dialogue. And of course, she could type. He was the plotmeister. Arthur takes a final drag on his cigarette, the tip glowing in the dark, and stubs it out in one of the dirt-filled, terra-cotta planters in which Gloria once cultivated gladiolus. Or was it gardenias? Something with a G.
And my son-in-law (pictured walking the beach with my grandson).
They are solid. Loving. Smart. Generous. Like my dad, totally besotted with their children, but in all other ways completely different. I count my blessings.
Hoping you all will share a snippet of the dads in your life.
