Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir “How to Lose Your Mother” arrives as both a deeply personal reckoning and a masterclass in navigating the treacherous waters of literary nepotism. The daughter of feminist icon Erica Jong, author of the groundbreaking “Fear of Flying,” Jong-Fast has spent her adult life carving out her own identity as a political writer and podcaster, always shadowed by her mother’s larger-than-life persona. This memoir represents her most vulnerable and accomplished work yet, offering readers an unflinching examination of what it means to lose a parent twice—first to fame, then to dementia.
The book opens with a devastating simplicity: “I am the only child of a once-famous woman.” This single sentence encapsulates the complex inheritance Jong-Fast has carried throughout her life—the burden of being both everything and nothing to a mother whose attention was perpetually divided between her daughter and her public persona. The memoir chronicles 2023, an “annus horribilis” during which Erica Jong’s dementia diagnosis coincides with the discovery of Jong-Fast’s husband Matt’s pancreatic cancer, creating a perfect storm of medical crises that forces the author to confront her role as both caregiver and daughter.
A Childhood Painted in Shades of Neglect and Glamour
Jong-Fast’s exploration of her childhood reads like a Gothic novel set against the backdrop of 1980s literary New York. She paints her upbringing with brutal honesty, describing herself as essentially raised by nannies while her mother traveled the world, gave speeches, and pursued various romantic entanglements. The author’s dyslexia becomes a particularly poignant symbol of her struggles—here was a child who couldn’t read, born into a family where words were currency and literary achievement was the highest form of validation.
The memoir excels in its detailed recreation of specific moments that illuminate the broader patterns of their relationship. Jong-Fast recalls waiting for her mother to pick her up from school, only to find Margaret, her beloved nanny, arriving instead. These small betrayals accumulate throughout the narrative, creating a mosaic of abandonment that explains the author’s later struggles with connection and trust. Her mother’s alcoholism threads through these memories like a dark ribbon, always present but rarely acknowledged by the family’s elaborate systems of denial.
The Complexity of Caretaking and Guilt
What distinguishes this memoir from other accounts of parental decline is Jong-Fast’s refusal to sentimentalize her experience. She admits to being a “bad daughter,” hiring aides rather than providing hands-on care herself, and feeling relief rather than pure grief as her mother disappears into dementia. This honesty is both the book’s greatest strength and its most challenging aspect for readers expecting traditional narratives of redemption and reconciliation.
The author’s decision to place her parents in an expensive nursing home becomes a central source of guilt and self-examination. Jong-Fast doesn’t shy away from the financial calculations involved in end-of-life care, nor does she pretend that love alone can overcome decades of complicated family dynamics. Her candid admission that she pays someone named Comfort to sit with her mother “so I don’t have to” is both heartbreaking and brutally realistic.
Literary Merit and Stylistic Achievements
Jong-Fast demonstrates considerable skill in balancing multiple narrative threads without losing focus. The parallel storylines of her mother’s decline and her husband’s cancer treatment are woven together with remarkable dexterity. Her prose style borrows from both her mother’s confessional tradition and contemporary memoir’s emphasis on self-interrogation, creating a voice that is distinctly her own while acknowledging its literary inheritance.
The author’s background as a political writer serves her well here, bringing a journalist’s eye for detail and a pundit’s willingness to make uncomfortable observations. Her descriptions of the nursing home, the hospital waiting rooms, and the various medical procedures are rendered with specificity that makes them feel immediate and real. She captures the particular quality of grief that comes from watching someone disappear while they’re still physically present.
Critical Considerations and Areas of Concern
While the memoir’s honesty is largely its strength, there are moments where Jong-Fast’s self-awareness occasionally tips into self-indulgence. Some readers may find her repeated assertions about being a “bad daughter” to be somewhat performative, particularly given her evident care for her mother’s wellbeing and dignity. The author’s privileged position—able to afford expensive care facilities and multiple assistants—sometimes creates distance between her experience and that of average readers facing similar challenges.
The memoir also occasionally suffers from a certain repetitiveness in its central themes. Jong-Fast returns again and again to the idea that she never really had her mother’s attention, which, while true, sometimes feels like a refrain that could have been developed with more variation. Additionally, some of the pop culture references and insider details about New York literary life may feel exclusionary to readers outside those circles.
Universal Themes in a Specific Story
Despite its particular circumstances, “How to Lose Your Mother” addresses universal experiences with remarkable insight. Jong-Fast’s exploration of how adult children must sometimes become parents to their own parents resonates across class and cultural lines. Her examination of how family patterns repeat themselves—her own struggles with connection, her mother’s inability to be present—offers valuable insights into inherited trauma and the possibility of breaking destructive cycles.
The memoir’s treatment of addiction, both her mother’s alcoholism and her own recovery, provides some of its most powerful moments. Jong-Fast’s twenty-six years of sobriety give her a unique perspective on her mother’s relationship with alcohol, and her ability to see both the disease and the person afflicted by it adds depth to her portrayal.
Placement in Contemporary Memoir
“How to Lose Your Mother” joins a growing canon of memoirs examining complicated parent-child relationships, including works like “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion and “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed. Jong-Fast’s contribution to this genre is her unflinching examination of nepotism, fame, and the particular challenges of growing up in the shadow of a literary parent. Her previous novels, including “Normal Girl” and “The Social Climber’s Handbook,” explored similar themes of identity and belonging, but this memoir represents her most mature and accomplished work.
Similar Books Worth Reading
Readers drawn to Jong-Fast’s honest exploration of difficult family dynamics in “How to Lose Your Mother” might enjoy:
- “Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful” by Stephanie Wittels Wachs
- “The Rules Do Not Apply” by Ariel Levy
- “Lab Girl” by Hope Jahren
- “Educated” by Tara Westover
- “Crying in H Mart” by Michelle Zauner
Final Assessment
“How to Lose Your Mother” succeeds as both a specific story about literary fame and its casualties, and as a universal exploration of loss, guilt, and the complex mathematics of love. Jong-Fast has created a memoir that honors both her mother’s legacy and her own journey toward self-understanding. While it occasionally indulges in the very self-absorption it critiques, the book ultimately offers a compassionate and clear-eyed view of how we become ourselves despite—or perhaps because of—our parents’ failures and successes.
The memoir’s greatest achievement may be its demonstration that it’s possible to love someone while also acknowledging the damage they’ve caused. Jong-Fast doesn’t offer easy answers or neat resolutions, but she does provide something perhaps more valuable: the recognition that survival itself can be a form of triumph, and that telling our stories honestly is sometimes the best gift we can give both to ourselves and to those who shaped us.