Althouse: "In 1973, Ms. Jong published 'Fear of Flying,' a roman-a-clef in which the young, pretty and privileged Isadora Wing leaves her husband and road trips through Europe..."

August 13, 2025

"In 1973, Ms. Jong published 'Fear of Flying,' a roman-a-clef in which the young, pretty and privileged Isadora Wing leaves her husband and road trips through Europe..."

"... seeking creative and sexual fulfillment. The message was that women didn’t have to stay in unfulfilling marriages. That bigger, richer lives beckoned. That message sold more than 20 million copies and made Ms. Jong a celebrated figure. This year, that book got another kind of sequel, when Molly Jong-Fast, Ms. Jong’s only child, published a memoir called 'How to Lose Your Mother.' The book depicts Erica Jong, now suffering from dementia, as a narcissist, a drunk, a disinterested parent who was either mining Molly’s life for material or ditching her to pursue her own adventures. The memoir, like [the sequel to 'Sex and the City'], serves as a generational rebuke to the women who prioritized careers and sex and fame and fortune over family, and a warning to any mothers foolish enough to follow Ms. Jong’s bad example. For those of us who loved the originals, the rise of the reboots feels chilling...."

Writes Jennifer Weiner, the novelist, in "In ‘And Just Like That…’ a Craven Era Took Its Revenge on Youth and Hope and Fun" (NYT).

62 comments:

CJinPA said...: Let's get a dark sequel to "Eat, Pray, Love." "Sit, Drink, Deny."; 8/13/25, 11:49 AM
Jupiter said...: "That bigger, richer lives beckoned."
As, indeed, they did.; 8/13/25, 11:50 AM
hawkeyedjb said...: One would think that a writer might know the difference between "disinterested" and "uninterested."; 8/13/25, 11:53 AM
Aggie said...: Aww, what a shame. So, the 'rise of the reboots feels chilling', eh? Tell us more, and make it about someone else.; 8/13/25, 12:00 PM
David53 said...: Since Jong is suffering from dementia, I wonder if there is any pushback from anyone to the claim that she was a vile mother. Did she have any friends who didn’t see it that way?; 8/13/25, 12:04 PM
tcrosse said...: Who gives a zipless fuck?; 8/13/25, 12:06 PM
Amexpat said...: Jong was mentioned in a Dylan song. That's got be worth something - unless he needed a rhyme for "wrong".
Then she says, “You don’t read women authors, do you?”
Least that’s what I think I hear her say
“Well,” I say, “how would you know and what would it matter anyway?”
“Well,” she says, “you just don’t seem like you do!”
I said, “You’re way wrong”
She says, “Which ones have you read then?” I say, “I read Erica Jong!”; 8/13/25, 12:08 PM
FullMoon said...: "Molly Jong-Fast, Ms. Jong’s only child, published a memoir called 'How to Lose Your Mother.' The book depicts Erica Jong, now suffering from dementia, as a narcissist, a drunk, a disinterested parent who was either mining Molly’s life for material or ditching her to pursue her own adventures."

Kids say the darndest things.; 8/13/25, 12:08 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "One would think that a writer might know the difference between "disinterested" and "uninterested.""

Yes, and I would think that if Erica was "mining Molly's life for material" wasn't "disinterested" or "uninterested."; 8/13/25, 12:08 PM
Blair said...: Is that anything like "Rochelle, Rochelle", a young woman's erotic journey from Madrid to Minsk?; 8/13/25, 12:08 PM
Peachy said...: As soon as something loses the fun - it usually loses me.

I love the small British series "Detectorists." It ended after season 3 on a sufficiently satisfying and positive note. It was a nice wrap up - that lead the viewer to imagine positive things to come - without needing to witness those things.
For some reason the creator made a one-off years later and most of the good feelings dissolved into negative soup. Why do this? It's human nature to want a happy ending, or at least something close.
Seems to be a trend. Whatever.
I am also sick of who-done-it crime shows. Way too many.
As far as Sex and the City... I'm glad I stopped watching after it got weird and negative. it was sort of fun and different when it first came out. Fun and different. Very difficult to find these days.
Now it's all negative lectures from scolds.; 8/13/25, 12:11 PM
Peachy said...: I read that book a million years ago. I recall lots of rape and painful sexual blackouts going on.; 8/13/25, 12:12 PM
Jaq said...: LOL, yes. You should read that novel if you want to know what the liberation of women is really about. It was a milestone in the trend of women's smut that has totally overrun the publishing business, and, oh, by the way, TV. The reason men can't get published is because we don't write smut for women very well, and the reason that men don't read is that women's smut is not that interesting to us. Therefore women completely dominate publishing, both in production and in the consumption.

This video came up in my feed, and was one of those videos that explained what I was feeling and hadn't really figured out, I have noticed that the women in my life, when they are watching TV, as often as not are watching what can only be called high production value smut.

The Absolute Degeneracy of Modern Literature.

We don't even get cheerleader shots at football games anymore.; 8/13/25, 12:12 PM
tommyesq said...: That bigger, richer lives beckoned.

For most people, the reality is sad loneliness. YRMV.; 8/13/25, 12:15 PM
Jaq said...: I liked what Kurt Vonnegut's son said to him, and Kurt must have admired it too, because he repeated it in writing. His son told him that Vonnegut "envied Tolstoy his dead children." Or was that Kingsley Amis and his son Martin. It all gets mixed up when you approach 70.; 8/13/25, 12:16 PM
Peachy said...: I think Sex and the City (original series) was written by a gay guy.
That made sense to me because the female characters displayed gay male sexual proclivities. Samantha loved to suck on any penis she could find.; 8/13/25, 12:26 PM
Kai Akker said...: My guess is that daughter Molly is more right than not. But everything feels chilling to the weiners of the world. It's a trope to get their thoughts published by the purveyors of angst like wherever this one was.

Let the pendulum swing.

Tim, I have also wondered where the cheerleaders went. Just more lefty puritanism and fear from the media who aren't sure which way the wind is blowing anymore.; 8/13/25, 12:33 PM
rhhardin said...: There was no excuse for Eat, Pray, Love (2010); 8/13/25, 12:34 PM
wild chicken said...: Yeah I read it back then but I didn't think much of it. I still don't understand what a "zipless fuck" is supposed to mean.; 8/13/25, 12:37 PM
Dave Begley said...: Molly Jong-Fast is a nasty piece of liberal work. Unhinged. Why trash her mother for some money; even if she wasn't a good mother?; 8/13/25, 12:43 PM
Bill Peschel said...: Yes, "Sex" was written by a gay man, so we're getting a gay man's sex life in a skirt. It was great fun, but it's no way to live a fulfilling life, as the second half shows. And Jennifer Weiner -- who rambled on and on about the lack of representation in publishing for women and minorities -- finally achieved that goal, and literature is not for shit. I wonder if she's proud of that achievement.; 8/13/25, 12:53 PM
Peachy said...: rh @ 12:34.
A rare moment of complete agreement.; 8/13/25, 1:09 PM
Rocco said...: rhhardin said...
“There was no excuse for Eat, Pray, Love (2010)”

I always thought Eat, Prey, Love was the motto of a female Black Widow spider with the word order rearranged.; 8/13/25, 1:13 PM
Unknown said...: Molly is an example of the kids of selfish 70s parents who learned a lot about how not to live and how not to treat people you say you love. Forgive me if I don't feel badly for the narcissistic parents in the situation.

Family Studies (ifstudies.org) published a graph a few weeks ago of "share of first marriages ending in divorce" by decade. Marriages begun in the 1970s have the oft-cited 50% divorce rate. Every decade after the 1970s trends down, and then there's a jump down for marriages begun in the 2010s, with strikingly lower divorce rates than all other decades except the 1950s, which it tracks fairly closely. (The 10-year rate of divorce of 2010s is under 15%; the 10-year rate for the 1970s marriages was twice that, nearly 30%. The 10-year rate for 1950s is about 12%.)

As a Millennial who comforted many, many friends through the instability of their parents' divorces, it's obvious that the significantly lower divorce rates of 2010s marriages can be credited to their parents' and friends' parents divorces. They lived through how flippant and selfish their parents were about marrying, divorcing, marrying, divorcing, and uprooting their kids' lives on a whim, and are determined not to do that to their own kids.; 8/13/25, 1:25 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Dont most novelists "Mine peoples lives" for material? When people complained about Truman Capote writing about them in thinly disguised fiction he said something like "They knew I was a writer!".

"Fear of Flying" sounds like the 20th Century "Fifty Shades of Grey".; 8/13/25, 1:27 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: "The book depicts Erica Jong, now suffering from dementia, as a narcissist, a drunk, a disinterested parent". Good thing she can multi-task. I can understand doing one of things, but to do all 4 at one-time takes talent.; 8/13/25, 1:29 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: "I think Sex and the City (original series) was written by a gay guy."

Sarah Jessica Parker is a Gay man's idea of pretty woman.; 8/13/25, 1:31 PM
Peachy said...: many years ago, I cracked open Eat Pray Love and was astonished at how contrived and poorly written the thing is.; 8/13/25, 1:39 PM
Kai Akker said...: Here is an excerpt from Molly J-F's book. The pictures along with it in Vanity Fair show her as a redhead when a child and later as an adult. She took that beautiful red hair and dyed it blonde?

She mentions it in the article/excerpt.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/molly-jong-fast-reflects-on-her-mothers-dementia; 8/13/25, 1:45 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Darren Star, the producer/creator of sex and the city, is openly Gay. As is Michael Patrick King the executive producer.; 8/13/25, 1:46 PM
john mosby said...: Akker: "She took that beautiful red hair and dyed it blonde?"

Are you throwing shade at the Prof?

RR
JSM; 8/13/25, 2:03 PM
john mosby said...: https://flickrock.com/althouse

RR (Rampaging Redheads!),
JSM; 8/13/25, 2:06 PM
chuck said...: Around thirty years ago I gave "Fear of Flying" to a young Gen X woman, who had never heard of it. Her take: meh. It didn't age well, and neither did Erica Jong.; 8/13/25, 2:25 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This post reminds me of the saddest video on Reddit.; 8/13/25, 2:50 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: For a really dark turn, watch "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (2011) link to trailer; 8/13/25, 3:13 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: @ Wild Chicken I still don't understand what a "zipless fuck" is supposed to mean.

AKA Dry Hump. Lucky you if you don't know.; 8/13/25, 3:21 PM
Ann Althouse said...: “The pictures along with it in Vanity Fair show her as a redhead when a child and later as an adult. She took that beautiful red hair and dyed it blonde?”

I can tell you from personal experience that when white hair comes into red hair it stops reading as red and it’s very hard to keep up with maintaining the red color artificially. It’s far far easier to switch to blonde in this circumstance. I would love to have my red hair back, but it can’t be done without looking wrong.; 8/13/25, 3:39 PM
Rabel said...: Normally I would yield to DBQ on all matters sexual but -

"The zipless fuck was more than a fuck. It was a platonic ideal. Zipless because when you came together zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff. Tongues intertwined and turned liquid. Your whole soul flowed out through your tongue and into the mouth of your lover."

- E. Jong; 8/13/25, 3:42 PM
RigelDog said...: I read Fear of Flying as a young woman. The “zipless farge,” right? I was still seeking to understand how to navigate the world as a woman and as someone interested in feminism so I read a lot of those popular texts.
I was supposed to like these essays and stories, they were supposed to empower me and offer guidance. Instead I was just left feeling like I’d just had a meal full of dust.
Now I know why I felt that way. I am just glad that although I wasted years pursuing adventures I thought I was supposed to be having, somehow I ended up prioritizing getting married and having children along with my interesting career.; 8/13/25, 3:53 PM
Kai Akker said...: ---- I would love to have my red hair back, but it can’t be done without looking wrong.

I did not grok that AA was a redhead in her salad days. I remember the great Carnaby Street yearbook (?) photo but it must have been b&w.

But the problem as presented tends to confirm my comment. Molly J-F is young or youngish. There is no reason for her to hide the red hair, which is precious. No reason except perhaps whatever passed between her and her batty mother (and step-father?).; 8/13/25, 4:01 PM
rehajm said...: Was the book sold in the How To section? It was a novel ladies, not instructions!; 8/13/25, 4:20 PM
Lazarus said...: “Zipless fuck,” a sexual encounter between two strangers for its own sake, without emotional involvement or commitment."
-- Goodreads

"zipless fuck
A usually spontaneous sexual encounter between strangers with little or no personal information exchanged. The highest plateau of casual sex."
-- Urban Dictionary

It seems like it was a preoccupation back in those days.; 8/13/25, 4:46 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: @Rabel....I stand corrected. Thanks. 😁 I never read the book back in the day. I thought feminists were nuts and feminism a crock.

Such flowery language. Rose Petals, Dandelion Fluff. Gardening? Platonic ideals? I guess I'm just more of a realist. Easier not to be so disappointed in life that way.

That is what I found nutty about feminism. Life is not perfect and expecting the "ideal"...demanding the ideal.... will only lead to unhappiness.; 8/13/25, 4:52 PM
Mary E. Glynn said...: wild chicken said...
Yeah I read it back then but I didn't think much of it. I still don't understand what a "zipless fuck" is supposed to mean.

8/13/25, 12:37 PM
----------
I think... it was what was happening between Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll in the Berghoff's dressing room, at the time. But he realized it, she didn't, and the zipless fuck fell out of fashion and is now rape.

Context clues.; 8/13/25, 5:20 PM
Mary E. Glynn said...: "My mother had a fear of flying, and all I got were these bylines and book publications from my coasting on the wind beneath her wings...." Molly Jong, Erica's daughter.; 8/13/25, 5:21 PM
Josephbleau said...: Everyone has been talking about sex since the Visier’s wife fucked Joseph. Why does that matter to me? "pour encourager les autres."; 8/13/25, 5:38 PM
Josephbleau said...: Fuck who you will, and accept the consequences. Slik går det.; 8/13/25, 5:46 PM
Mrs. X said...: Althouse hates ‘garner,’ I hate ‘disinterested’ which means impartial. Judges can be, should be, disinterested. Parents of the neglectful variety are uninterested.; 8/13/25, 6:02 PM
Kai Akker said...: --- It seems like it was a preoccupation back in those days. [Lazarus]

It all derives from Jong's book -- I am pretty sure. She originated the phrase through her alter-ego character and it caught on, although not immediately. I think it was still a tiny bit too risque for 1973, even, but it percolated. Also, in the book, Jong comes to see the silliness and contradiction (or impossibility) of it herself. She comes to a pretty conventional ending, IIRC. But heck, though it was several years past the summer of love, the free-love impulse was still moving through the culture, pre-AIDS.

For Mosby -- trying to get me in a little trouble, were you? Like your namesake. But I am pretty good at that all by myself. Or maybe it was a roundabout head's-up? Well, I learned something new.; 8/13/25, 6:22 PM
Hey Skipper said...: Lem Vibe Bandit said...
This post reminds me of the saddest video on Reddit.

What this woman, and *all* feminists do not realize is that evolution/God made them very specialized, and men general purpose.

That means there are a great many things upon which civilization depends that men can do, and women either can’t, or won’t, do.

The clothes she wears, the car she is in, the cellphone, electricity, plumbing, streets, ad infinitum, exist solely because of men.

Who was the certifiable moron who said “women need men like fish need a bicycle”?; 8/13/25, 6:29 PM
Josephbleau said...: I saw some pictures of the young Althouse’s red hair. But that does not mean I want to date you.; 8/13/25, 6:30 PM
JIM said...: When I was in my 20's (1976), I knew a girl who didn't shave her underarms. She had an attitude unlike any female I had ever known up to that point.; 8/13/25, 6:44 PM
john mosby said...: Akker - no, not trying to get you into trouble. I just jump on any opportunity for an Althouse Flashback!

Must keep our micro-cultural heritage alive.

RR
JSM; 8/13/25, 6:54 PM
Lazarus said...: Mom was married four times and wrote porn novels about sex with strangers and Molly was surprised that Mom was a narcissist?

I was under the understanding that most of the divorces in the Seventies were of older couples who'd married earlier. Divorce was supposed to be the great trauma that GenX had to live through as children. Millennials too?; 8/13/25, 7:22 PM
Mrs. X said...: I obviously was too uninterested to read the earlier comments and therefore missed that the distinterst/uninterest issue had already been addressed.; 8/13/25, 7:35 PM
Goldenpause said...: Two unrelated points:

In 1973 Erica Jong received a $5,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant which she in part used to revise her book Fear of Flying. She thanked the NEA in the book. One more reason (if we needed one) to kill the NEA.

Molly Jong-Fast is publicly hurling accusations at her mother who has dementia and cannot defend herself. Molly is also monetizing her mother’s plight. Molly is shameless. Dante would assign Molly to a special place in hell.; 8/13/25, 7:53 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Kai Akker - that's a pretty good excerpt. thanks. I liked the line She was famous for her book, then famous for being famous, and then not being famous at all.

As a novelist, she was a one-hit wonder. But then a lot of novelists are. She wrote about sex in a way no one else did in 1973. A few good turns of phrase, autobiographical.; 8/13/25, 7:53 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: In my younger and more tasteless years I actually read Fear of Flying. About all I remember is “zipless fuck” and I suspect that’s all most people remember. I remember because it reminded me of the old joke, “Why do Scotsmen wear kilts?” “Because sheep can hear zippers.”; 8/13/25, 11:32 PM
Jaq said...: It's pretty funny that the writer would choose the word "bigger" for what Jessica Wing was seeking when she dumped her husband, who, she allowed, was a good provider, and an intelligent, witty man. If you read the book, "bigger" is pretty on the nose. I had to read this book in a modern American literature class. I can't imagine taking a book seriously had it been written by a man who divorced his wife looking for a woman with a better body because he was bored with his sex life, not that that doesn't happen, it's just that it's not held up by society as a choice to emulate. Men are being treated like a conquered race in our culture.; 8/14/25, 6:03 AM
gilbar said...: all women should follow erica's advice!
abandon EVERY THING you have..
throw it ALL Away, for "zipless sex"!
enjoy The Moment!!!
die unhappy and alone.

wait a minute, Why, Exactly? did most of america's women think this was a good path?

How many women (then.. NOW) are either
divorcing their husband, "because he's not 'exciting'"
or, just NEVER Even dating average guys that like them;
all so that they can be a Chad's f*ck buddy for a few nights?; 8/14/25, 7:03 AM
gilbar said...: here's webster's def:
disinterested /dĭs-ĭn′trĭ-stĭd, -ĭn′tə-rĕs″tĭd/
adjective

1) Free of bias and self-interest; impartial.
2) Not interested; indifferent. Having lost interest.

so, y'all are complaining because she's using def #2?; 8/14/25, 7:13 AM
JAORE said...: What an odd symbiosis where both parties are host AND parasite to each other.; 8/14/25, 12:14 PM