Erica Jong
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Erica Jong (née Mann; born March 26, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet known particularly for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. The Washington Post said in 2013 that it had sold more than 20 million copies worldwide,<ref name="washingtonpost"/> while by 2022, The New York Times reported that worldwide sales of the book had increased to over 37 million copies.<ref name = Bozzone/>
Early life and education
Erica Mann was born in Manhattan, New York, on March 26, 1942.<ref name="archive"/><ref name = Kamensky>Template:Cite news</ref> She is one of three daughters of Seymour Mann (died 2004), and Eda Mirsky (1911–2012).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Her father was a businessman of Polish-Jewish ancestry who owned a gifts and home accessories company<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> known for its mass production of porcelain dolls. Her mother was born in England of a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, and was a painter and textile designer who also designed dolls for her husband's company.
She has an elder sister, Suzanna, who married Lebanese businessman Arthur Daou, and a younger sister, Claudia, a social worker who married Gideon S. Oberweger (the chief executive officer of Seymour Mann Inc. until his death in 2006).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Among her nephews is Peter Daou, a political strategist and former musician who in 1994 produced an album titled Zipless, a concept album based on Jong's novel Fear of Flying.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Mann attended the High School of Music & Art in Harlem, New York in the 1950s, where she developed her passion for art and writing. As a student at Barnard College in Manhattan, Jong edited the Barnard Literary Magazine<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and created poetry programs for WKCR, Columbia University's radio station.Template:Citation needed In 1963, she graduated from Barnard College, and in 1965, she graduated from Columbia University with an MA in 18th century English Literature. She wrote her master's thesis on the representations of women in the poetry of Alexander Pope.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> During her time at Barnard, she married Michael Werthman in 1963, although they soon divorced. In 1966, she married Allan Jong, a Chinese American psychiatrist, whose surname she kept after their divorce.<ref name = Kamensky/>
Career
Jong is best known for her first novel, Fear of Flying (1973), which created a sensation with its frank treatment of a woman's sexual desires,<ref name="washingtonpost">Template:Cite news</ref> through an account of Isadora Wing, a woman in her late twenties, searching for who she is and where she is going. Jong employed psychological and humorous descriptive elements, rich cultural and literary references, frank depictions of and ruminations on sex.
The book addresses some of the conflicts that were arising for women in late 1960s and early 1970s America-of womanhood, femininity, sex, and relationships, versus the quest for freedom and purpose.<ref>"Jong, Erica" in Current Biography Yearbook 1997. New York / Dublin: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1997. p. 248</ref> The saga of the thwarted fulfillment of Isadora Wing continues in two further novels, How to Save Your Own Life (1977) and Parachutes and Kisses (1984).
Personal life
After her first two marriages ended in divorce, Jong married novelist and educator Jonathan Fast in 1977, son of novelist Howard Fast.<ref name="archive"/> Their marriage was described in How to Save Your Own Life and Parachutes and Kisses. She and Jonathan Fast have a daughter, Molly Jong-Fast. Jong's third marriage also ended in divorce. Jong and Kenneth David Burrows, a New York litigator, were married until his death on December 14, 2023.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Molly Jong-Fast wrote a memoir about her relationship with her mother, entitled How to Lose Your Mother. It was published in 2025.<ref name = Alter>Template:Cite news</ref>
Jong lived on an army base in Heidelberg, West Germany for three years (1966–69) with her second husband. She was a frequent visitor to Venice, Italy, and wrote about the city in her novel Shylock's Daughter. She lived in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan until 2023, and has also owned a house in Connecticut.<ref name = Alter/><ref name = Bozzone>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2007, her literary archive was acquired by Columbia University in Manhattan.
Jong is mentioned in "Highlands", the closing song of Bob Dylan's Grammy Award-winning album Time Out of Mind (1997), as one of the "women authors" whose books the narrator reads. She is satirized on the MC Paul Barman track "N.O.W.", in which the rapper fantasizes about a young leftist carrying a fictitious Jong book titled America's Wrong.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2008, Jong wrote in support of same-sex marriage, saying that "It certainly promotes stability and family... it's certainly good for kids."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In the early 2020s, Jong was diagnosed with dementia. Template:As of, she lives in a nursing home in Manhattan.<ref name="Alter" />
Bibliography
Fiction
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- Fear of Flying (1973)
- How to Save Your Own Life (1977)
- Fanny, Being the True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones (1980) (a retelling of Fanny Hill)
- Megan's Book of Divorce: a kid's book for adults; as told to Erica Jong; illustrated by Freya Tanz. New York: New American Library (1984)
- Megan's Two Houses: a story of adjustment; illustrated by Freya Tanz (1984; West Hollywood, CA: Dove Kids, 1996)
- Parachutes & Kisses. New York: New American Library (1984) (UK ed. as Parachutes and Kisses: London: Granada, 1984.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Shylock's Daughter (1987): formerly titled Serenissima
- Any Woman's Blues (1990)
- Inventing Memory (1997)
- Sappho's Leap (2003)
- Fear of Dying (September 8, 2015)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Non-fiction
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- Witches; illustrated by Joseph A. Smith. New York: Harry A. Abrams (1981)
- The Devil at Large: Erica Jong on Henry Miller (1993)
- Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir (1994)
- What Do Women Want? bread roses sex power (1998)
- Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life (2006)
- Essay, "My Dirty Secret". Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave (2007)
- Essay, "It Was Eight Years Ago Today (But It Seems Like Eighty)"<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> (2008)
Anthology
- Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex Ed; Erica Jong (2011)
Poetry
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- Fruits & Vegetables (1971, 1997)
- Half-Lives (1973)
- Loveroot (1975)
- At the Edge of the Body (1979)
- Ordinary Miracles (1983)
- Becoming Light: New and Selected (1991)
- Love Comes First (2009)
- The World Began with Yes (Red Hen Press, 2019)
Awards
- Poetry Magazine's Bess Hokin Prize (1971)
- Sigmund Freud Award For Literature (1975)
- United Nations Award For Excellence In Literature (1998)
- Deauville Award For Literary Excellence In France
- Fernanda Pivano Award For American Literature In Italy
Documentary
- 2023 Erica Jong - Breaking the Wall by Kaspar Kasics<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
References
External links
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- "What this woman wants" – in-depth interview & profile in The Guardian, April 3, 1999
- Review of Seducing the Demon at Powells.com
- Aging and Sex with Erica Jong – October 3, 2007
- Interview on Fruits and Vegetables at the WNYC Archives
- 20th-century American novelists
- 20th-century American poets
- 20th-century American women novelists
- 21st-century American novelists
- 21st-century American poets
- 21st-century American women novelists
- American feminist writers
- American women poets
- Barnard College alumni
- Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
- The High School of Music & Art alumni
- Jewish American women writers
- Jewish American novelists
- Jewish American poets
- Jewish American feminists
- American LGBTQ rights activists
- Sex-positive feminists
- Novelists from New York (state)
- Writers from Manhattan
- People from the Upper East Side
- People from Weston, Connecticut
- American people of English-Jewish descent
- American people of Polish-Jewish descent
- American people of Russian-Jewish descent
- 21st-century American Jews
- 1942 births
- Living people