Price: $28.00 - $18.50
(as of Dec 23, 2025 09:00:00 UTC – Details)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2025
“With propulsive humor and perspective on her annus horribilis, Jong-Fast achieves the memoir’s transformative work of alchemy, arming us all with lines so good you won’t just want to underline them, you will want to cut them out to share.” —The Washington Post
“This raw, intimate memoir is a stunning portrait of difficult relationships and how we survive them.” —People
“Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir is mesmerizing, intimate, wise, unputdownable, crazily honest, heartbreaking, funny, illuminating—beautiful and painful at the same time, just like real life.” —Anne Lamott
From the political writer and podcaster, a ferociously honest and disarmingly funny memoir about her elusive mother’s encroaching dementia and a reckoning with her complicated childhood
Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of a famous woman, writer Erica Jong, whose sensational book Fear of Flying launched her into second-wave feminist stardom. She grew up yearning for a connection with her dreamy, glamorous, just out of reach mother, who always seemed to be heading somewhere that wasn’t with Molly. When, in 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia just as Molly’s husband discovered he had a rare cancer, Jong-Fast was catapulted into a transformative year.
How to Lose Your Mother is a compulsively readable memoir about an intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and the upheavals that challenge our hard-won adulthood. A pitch-perfect balance of acceptance and rage, humor and heart, How to Lose Your Mother tells a universal story of loss alongside a singular story of a literary life. This is a memoir that will stand alongside the classics of the genre.
From the Publisher
Publisher : Viking
Publication date : June 3, 2025
Language : English
Print length : 256 pages
ISBN-10 : 0593656474
ISBN-13 : 978-0593656471
Item Weight : 12 ounces
Dimensions : 5.74 x 0.94 x 8.59 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #32,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #59 in Author Biographies #116 in Women’s Biographies #540 in Memoirs (Books)
Customer Reviews: 4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars (1,749) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Customers say
Customers find this memoir compelling and honest, describing it as a deeply personal must-read. The writing is praised for its quality, with one customer noting the author’s talent for capturing life’s humanity. Customers describe the book as heartrending and very relatable, with one review mentioning it’s not a dull moment throughout. The storyline receives mixed reactions, with some finding it a story not to be missed while others find it negative and self-pitying. Customers appreciate the humor in the book.
