How to Lose Your Mother A Daughter’s Memoir

Instant New York Times Bestseller

Some mothers are impossible to hold onto—and just as impossible to let go. In this ferociously honest memoir, political writer and podcaster Molly Jong-Fast reckons with what it means to be the only child of literary icon Erica Jong, the woman who wrote Fear of Flying and became a second-wave feminist sensation.

Growing up in the orbit of fame, Molly spent her childhood yearning for a mother who always seemed to be heading somewhere else—somewhere that wasn’t with her. When Erica receives a dementia diagnosis in 2023, just as Molly’s husband discovers he has a rare cancer, Jong-Fast is thrust into a transformative year that forces her to confront the complicated relationship she’s spent a lifetime navigating.

What readers are saying:

• The Washington Post praises its “propulsive humor and perspective”
• People calls it “a stunning portrait of difficult relationships and how we survive them”
• Anne Lamott describes it as “mesmerizing, intimate, wise, unputdownable, crazily honest”

This isn’t just a story about losing a parent—it’s about the upheavals that challenge everything we’ve built in adulthood, the acceptance we find alongside rage, and the humor that carries us through heartbreak. A pitch-perfect balance of vulnerability and wit, How to Lose Your Mother belongs on the shelf next to the classics of memoir writing.

For anyone who’s ever loved someone just out of reach, this one will stay with you.

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