How to Lose Your Mother
A Daughter's Memoir
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- 8,99 €
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestseller.
Molly Jong-Fast's honest, heartbreaking and brutally funny memoir about losing a mother you never really had – and a comfort to anyone who loves someone who drives them crazy.
'I was just bowled over by this book' – Nigella Lawson
'A gripping memoir about mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, loss and healing . . . exquisitely relatable' – Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
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Molly Jong-Fast is the daughter of acclaimed writer Erica Jong. How to Lose Your Mother is Molly’s despairing memoir about that intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and how that can really mess you up. But with her mother’s heartbreaking descent into dementia, and Molly’s realization that she is going to lose this remarkable woman, it is also a story of love, loss, confusion and deep grief.
How to Lose Your Mother takes us behind the scenes of a fascinating and sometimes tumultuous family dynamic, revels in the gossipy details of Erica’s famous friends and enemies, and leaves us with a better understanding of our own most precious relationships.
'Conveys the mess, terror, loneliness and glory of familial love, in all its riveting complexity' – Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Jong-Fast (The Social Climber's Handbook) chronicles the worst year of her life in this staggering self-portrait. In 2023, Jong-Fast's mother, Erica Jong, celebrated the 50th anniversary of her groundbreaking novel, Fear of Flying. It was also the year Jong was diagnosed with dementia. As Jong-Fast prepared to care for her mother, more blows came: her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and her stepfather's Parkinson's began to worsen. Jong-Fast's life became a flurry of doctors, lawyers, and accountants, as she was forced to place her mother and stepfather in assisted living and clear out the apartment the couple shared. Looking back over her and Jong's relationship, Jong-Fast eloquently captures the loneliness she felt as "the only child of a once-famous mother" who was often inaccessible, leaving her daughter in the care of other women and dumping her lovers "the instant got sick or... boring." Conversely, she recalls Jong's intoxicating glamor, which led Jong-Fast to "adore more than a daughter has ever loved a mother." Resisting tidy sentiment or easy answers, Jong-Fast dives headfirst into the often-difficult ambiguities of parent-child bonds. The results are stunning.
