Molly Jong-Fast’s Candid Memoir Chronicles Her Mother Erica Jong’s Struggle with Dementia

From an early age, Molly Jong-Fast has wrestled with the unsettling sensation of living between two identities.

There is the genuine Molly, and then there is the literary version of herself that frequently appears in her mother Erica Jong’s novels and memoirs. Whenever acquaintances revealed knowledge of her rebellious teenage years or struggles with substance abuse, Molly would often freeze, realizing they must have learned those details from her mother’s writings.

She has long resented the exposure of her private life, especially her most challenging moments, being transformed into material for her mother’s work. Understanding this, she anticipates that some readers might view her forthright and unvarnished memoir about her mother — a feminist icon now grappling with dementia — as an act of literary payback. She partly acknowledges this perspective.

“It feels like a profound betrayal,” Molly admitted during an interview at her sunlit Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, where she enjoyed a cappuccino while holding Bucephalus, one of her three small white Chinese crested dogs. “I have exposed Erica Jong, but I do it as a form of honoring her.”

Erica Jong gained fame with her 1973 debut novel, “Fear of Flying,” which follows a married woman’s exploration of casual relationships. The book was both a critical and commercial success, praised by literary figures and selling over 20 million copies. Jong was celebrated for her candid portrayal of women’s sexual freedom at a time when such themes were provocative. She was equally uninhibited in revealing personal details in her memoirs and interviews, often drawing heavily from the lives of those around her. Friends, lovers, ex-partners, and even her only child, Molly, frequently appeared as thinly veiled characters in her work.