“How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir” by Molly Jong-Fast

c.2025, Viking $28.00 256 pages

When you were still a child, everyone wanted a piece of your mother.

Requests for donations, organizing skills, and fundraising abilities arrived frequently at your house and she always stepped up to help. Her church, your school, her parents, your family, everybody wanted a piece of your Mom but, as in the new memoir, “How to Lose Your Mother” by Molly Jong-Fast, what happens when there are no pieces left?

In the past, strangers often approached Molly Jong-Fast to talk about her mother. They’d say how much Erica Jong’s books meant to them, or they wanted to discuss things Jong wrote or said or thought. It used to happen all the time, Jong-Fast says, but not anymore: Jong hasn’t written a book in awhile because she has dementia.

Jong, says her daughter, was always was a little quirky; her fame inherently made her unlike other mothers but it went deeper than that, with serial relationships, a constant desire for attention, and generational alcoholism. Still, Jong-Fast says, Jong loved her daughter but not more than her writing or the string of men in her life. Not enough to let Jong-Fast feel loved, fully and truly – and with that, a lingering sense of something missing seemed to be a fact of Jong-Fast’s life.

In early 2023, it became a feature.

At around the time that Jong was diagnosed with dementia and her husband’s Parkinson’s disease took a bad turn, Jong-Fast’s husband, Matt, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. That year, one by one, they lost Jong-Fast’s godmother, Matt’s sister and father, Jong-Fast’s aunt, their dog, and her stepfather.

Parents die, she says, and if they’re sick, you’re glad they’re not suffering anymore. You might be glad you’re not suffering anymore with them. But you never stop needing them, even when they’re just a shell right in front of you…

The first thing you’ll want to know – and it’s not surprising, if you’re a follower of author Molly Jong-Fast – is that once you start reading “How to Lose Your Mother,” you shouldn’t expect to spend 200+ pages all teary-eyed.

Though, yes, there’s admittedly plenty here to cause your chest to hurt and your eyes to leak, Jong-Fast writes with dark-ish humor that you’ll understand, caregiver or not. It’s the if-you-don’t-laugh-you’ll-cry kind you’ll know, since we’ve all known illness. It’s the sort of humor that makes you snort because it’s funny-not-funny, and she also uses it to self-depreciatingly share her life, rehab, work, and her Mom. It’s tender without being maudlin, loving but honest, so readers can rest assured that she’s plainly speaking your language, not jerking tears for no reason.

That’s gold, especially for later Boomers and Gen-Xers caring for their parents.

Daughters of unconventional mothers will swear that Jong-Fast is walking their walk. Caregivers will find many simpatico pages here. Yes, this book will put small cracks in your heart – more, if you have a parent with dementia or Alzheimers – but you’ll love “How to Lose Your Mother” anyhow. It’s worth every piece of your time.