While she might be a bit startled to hear it, I think that Nora Ephron comes pretty close to exemplifying the androgynous ideal that some feminists advocate as the solution to the war between men and women. She is attractively feminine, in the obsolete sense of that battered word, and a regular fellow at the same time. I would even say "one of the boys," if I were not afraid of being misunderstood. She is tender and tough, sentimental and cynical, old-fashioned and modern in just about the right proportions. Her feminism does not keep her from wondering whether our secret sexual fantasies can ever catch up with the categories of the women's liberation movement. What will happen to the literature of the past in the light of the future?, she asks, putting her finger on the fact that polarization of the sexes does seem to be an integral part of what we call romance….

The first piece in ["Crazy Salad"], "A Few Words About Breasts," is already regarded as the classic statement on large-breast fetishism. In this case, though, I think that Miss Ephron has been disproportionately praised. While there are good things in the article, she is too often cute when she is capable of being profound. I didn't feel much wiser after reading it, and it is her subject, after all.

"Dealing With the, uh, Problem," her study of vaginal deodorants, is a fine piece of reporting, full of splendid deadpan ironies….

I found two cases in which the author herself seemed to put sisterhood before objectivity: her calling one of Midge Decter's books "almost unreadable" and her uncharacteristically humorless response to Jan Morris's "Conundrum."…

Sometimes the author is a little too deft for me. I am not quite sure what she is trying to say about Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Rose Mary Woods or Pat Loud. She gives me a lot to think about in reference to each of them, but I'm puzzled as to what she wants me to feel.

The best thing about "Crazy Salad" is the implicit portrait of Miss Ephron herself. In many ways, she might model for a kind of contemporary pin-up who would please and relieve quite a few men I know. She is the sort of woman who can be ironical without seeming antiaphrodisiac or "castrating." She sounds as if she regards her own sexuality as part of a Dutch treat. She is intellectual in what I will rashly call a rather erotic way, appearing to enjoy the shape, the feel of an idea as much as its significance. If you were talking to her, I think you might occasionally forget that she is a woman then suddenly remember it with pleasure. She has the balance of an acrobat, a talent we all need these days.