I LOVED this book. I had some awareness of Erica Jong's dementia from watching Molly Jong-Fast. I had no idea what she was going through with her husband. Such a challenging time with realistic ways of getting through it.
The stories of dealing with her mom were so relatable. Her challenges with a narcisstic mom so thoughtful. We are doing the best we can and she has done it. The details were so real, such as dealing with a parent that was once so stylish to one that now struggles to shower. Selling the book collection was such a strong detail. I think most of us have parents with very "important" collections that did not turn out as being so valuable. I read this in one weekend. I can't wait until it comes out and I can recommend it to others.

I read Fear of Lying when it first came out, when I was in college. It was every budding feminist’s thing to do. I had no idea what Erica Jong was like personally, although I’m sure I must’ve seen her on various talk shows over the years. How to Lose Your Mother, by Molly Jong-Fast, fills in all those blanks and then some in her wrenching account of growing up the daughter of someone so notoriously famous. For every daughter of a narcissist, or alcoholic, or narcissistic alcoholic, for every mother who felt like she did her best but still had great failures, this book is a must (difficult, uncomfortable) read. Erica Jong did not make life easy for her only child. In fact, she often made no life for her at all, leaving her with nannies for extended periods of time. As self-deprecating and hard on herself as she is, Molly Jong-Fast should in fact be very proud of who she grew up to be, in spite of many challenges. She is sober, has a long and happy marriage and three children. She has a successful career. She has taken care of her mother, who now has dementia and lives in a nursing home, in many ways better than she was taken care of herself. Her childhood was a unique kind of crazy, but she survived it. We should all be lucky enough to say the same. Or as Jong-Fast said in my absolute favorite line from this book, “Sometimes you just have to put the life jacket on yourself first.”