Shelf Life: Molly Jong-Fast
Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.
In 2023, author Erica Jong appeared in Shelf Life to mark the 50th anniversary of her novel Fear of Flying, for which her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, had penned the foreword to the new edition. Now, Jong-Fast herself is joining the column, timed to the release of her fourth book, How to Lose Your Mother, which chronicles the year her mother was diagnosed with dementia; her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; and both her father-in-law and stepfather died.
“I wanted my story to be in the vein of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking—the year of your life when the bottom falls out,” Jong-Fast says of her latest work. “Telling my story helped ground me when I needed stability. I wanted to show readers that despite everything, I made it through—and others can. It wasn’t easy. It still isn’t easy. But I’m okay. If just one person dealing with overwhelming circumstances reads this and feels hopeful, then writing the book was worthwhile.”
The Manhattan-born, -raised, and -based MSNBC political analyst is the host of the podcast Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast, as well as a Vanity Fair special correspondent; went to Barnard College and earned her MFA from Bennington College; has talked extensively about getting sober at 19 (when she wrote her first book, Normal Girl); is a self-described extrovert; is not a crier; and has three kids and two dogs.