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.