Ann grew up on the West Coast of the United States with her brother Peter and their mother Silvia. Her father and mine, Ring Lardner Jr., moved east with a second wife and set of children, after his movie-writing career had run up against the Hollywood blacklist.
In my childhood, visits from Ann and Peter were a summertime treat. Ann came with a suntan and a cheerful air that I associated with Southern California, and a sardonic streak that she inherited from her mother. I was the youngest and dumbest of five siblings and half-siblings, picked on by everybody. Except for Ann, who, out of reflexive contrariness, stuck up for me. I had developed a well-deserved reputation for not telling the truth. Ann took me aside, and, in a conversation I remember very fondly, advised me to tell lies I would have a better chance of getting away with.

Her study of Japan and Japanese history came about, to hear Ann tell it, through a chance conversation with a professor who was setting up a Stanford program in Tokyo. Going to Japan sounded more interesting to her than Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which another professor had her reading at the time. But that self-deprecating explanation does not capture the largeness of her desire to know the world beyond an America that, she rightly sensed, was getting way too content with itself.
One of the best of all my times with Ann was in Japan in the summer of 1986. I got to see how much she was at home there. She took me on a drive in the hinterlands with an overnight stay at a Ryokan, or country inn, where I acquired the lifelong habit of taking baths so super-hot you have to lower yourself in an inch at a time.

I was in Japan as a journalist working on an article that involved Sony and Matsushita and the development of a now-forgotten miracle device called the videocassette recorder. Ann was an invaluable counselor, training me to understand, for example, when a yes answer could be taken seriously, and when it reflected only an extreme national reluctance to say no. One day I showed up to interview a couple of corporate executives with Ann as my translator. They were bowled over by her facility with the language. Me too -- bowled over, and proud as hell.


One of the last times I saw Ann was on the happy occasion of our father's 80th birthday. By then, she was firmly settled at Oxford and in her identity as an expat. But when email came along, we made frequent use of it to commiserate about the state of American culture and democracy, exchange reading tips, and lay plans for transatlantic visits that, alas, one after another, failed to happen.

I have been reading back over our correspondence. It reminds me that Ann had formed a rather dark view of Anglo-American civilization. That made her, I am sorry to say, a savvy commentator on our times. Here are a few samples:
May 2012 (after I had referred to something posted on Facebook): “[If there was some way of preventing Facebook, Twitter and/or Linkedin from bombarding me with new contacts raided from my address book and the address books of others, I might consider rejoining."

October 2016 (a month before the U.S. presidential election of that year): “I do hope that recent press reports are right that Trump now cannot possibly win, but somehow I think the outcome is not going to be pleasant however it turns out."
Feb 2020: "I have a hunch that a Covid-19 pandemic will be declared soon, and foreign travel of any sort this spring and summer will be challenging."

That last remark was not an idle generalization; it had specific reference to a plan we had worked out together. My son Nick and I were going to meet Ann in England and France. Ann, as I’m sure others can testify, was a terrific host and a thorough, bordering on obsessive, travel planner. I offer in evidence this email dated February 17th:

“Your BA flight will be arriving at Heathrow Terminal 5, and you should be through customs, baggage reclaim by 8.30 or thereabouts/ What happens next depends on you and Nick and your susceptibility to jet lag. 1) You may want to sleep for a few hours, in which case you could take the Heathrow Express to London Paddington and check in at the Mercure Hotel at 10am for a modest additional fee. The standard check-in time at almost all London hotels is 2pm.  2) Or if you're sure you'll be perky enough you could head off on the somewhat longer tube journey from Heathrow to London Victoria and from there to Elephant and Castle, and either the considerably cheaper Bridge or Westpoint Hotel, within easy walking distance of the Imperial War Museum, Southwark Cathedral and the River Thames  -  and on a direct line to St Pancras, for Eurostar trains to France. Like most hotels, these will store your luggage until checking in time.

“I'm happy to make hotel bookings for you, and for me as I would plan to meet up with you at either option 1 or 2. Indeed, I could meet you at the Costa coffee shop in the Terminal 5 arrivals hall and accompany you to either 1 or 2. It is incredibly easy for me to get to terminal 5, as there is a coach going there at regular intervals from the top of my street here in Oxford and arriving in an hour. You've missed the 90-day deadline for cheap Heathrow Express tickets, but you can still get a modest discount by ordering soon online, if you go for that option. The tube to Victoria and beyond costs next to nothing.”

I curse the coronavirus pandemic for up-ending our trip and making it too easy for Ann to isolate herself in a time of physical and emotional trial. And I throw in more curses for Donald Trump and Boris Johnson and their ilk for making a natural disaster so much worse than it had to be. I know Ann would heartily join me in that sentiment.