Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of a famous woman, writer Erica Jong, whose book Fear of Flying launched her into second-wave feminist stardom. She grew up yearning for a connection with her dreamy, glamorous, just out of reach mother, who always seemed to be heading somewhere that wasn’t with Molly. When, in 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia just as Molly’s husband discovered he had a rare cancer, Jong-Fast was catapulted into a transformative year. This is her memoir about their intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and the upheavals that challenge our hard-won adulthood.
Jong-Fast...examines this 'annus horribilis' with exacting detail, unflinching honesty and raw emotion, managing to leaven the pain with self-deprecating humor and a mighty reservoir of love. Her prose is direct, simple and filled with bits of wisdom, asides to the reader, all of which creates an experience of intimacy with an adored friend ... A midlife coming-of-age story in the extreme. Jong-Fast has put to words the tumult of the worst year of her life, captured and harnessed the experience so that the rest of us can know that we are not alone. She’s Job with a sense of humor.
Jong-Fast has written a memoir that feels like an effort to transcend her mother’s narrative with her own, while still remaining deeply bound to the family form ... Jong-Fast is cognizant of both her nepo-baby privilege and the thorny ethics of writing a memoir about an ailing parent. Yet she remains unsparing in her analysis, and grief and rage coincide with comedy and uptown-literati charm ... Reading How to Lose Your Mother, one senses that the mother got the very daughter she wanted, even if she had no idea what to do with her when she arrived.
The writing veers between punchy and meandering, with moments of deep sadness leavened by a sardonic humour. There is a sense, at times, that we are eavesdropping on an extended therapy session ... Her honesty not just about her mother’s shortcomings but her own, specifically her reluctance to spend time with Erica, is affecting ... '[I’ve] always hated the idea of writing a book like this',
she notes more than once, to which the obvious response is: 'Then why do it?' Certainly, Jong-Fast’s assertion that she is a bad daughter for writing about Erica’s decline strikes a disingenuous note ... Jong-Fast is most convincing when describing the blunt reality of her situation.
