How to Lose your Mother

Mother-daughter relationships are complicated enough without being the daughter of Erica Jong, who famously invented the term “Zipless F*&%$” in her groundbreaking feminist novel Fear of Flying. With incredible honesty, Molly Jong-Fast, an accomplished writer in her own right, bravely navigates the confusion and grief of losing her mother to dementia in the same year she must deal with her husband’s cancer diagnosis. Anne Lamott writes, “Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir is mesmerizing, intimate, wise, unputdownable, crazily honest, heartbreaking, funny, illuminating—beautiful and painful at the same time, just like real life.” Jong-Fast will appear in conversation with Susan Shapiro, author and co-author of eighteen books, including the memoir Five Men Who Broke My Heart, recently optioned for a movie.

Book Cover: Jacket photograph: ©1980 Thomas Victor courtesy Erick Backos