Incubator escapee wiki

Erica Jong

Article Discussion

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox writer

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 has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide,<ref name="washingtonpost"/> while by 2022, The New York Times reported that worldwide sales had increased to over 37 million copies.<ref name = Bozzone/>

Early life and educationEdit

Erica Mann was born in Manhattan, in New York City, 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>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=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>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Mann attended New York's The High School of Music & Art in the 1950s, where she developed her passion for art and writing. As a student at Barnard College, Jong edited the Barnard Literary Magazine<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and created poetry programs for the Columbia University campus radio station, WKCR.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. During her time at Barnard, she married Michael Werthman in 1963, though they soon divorced. In 1966, she married Allan Jong, a Chinese-American psychiatrist, whose surname she kept after their divorce.<ref name = Kamensky/>

CareerEdit

File:Erica Jong by Bernard Gotfryd edit.jpg
Erica Jong early in her career, photographed by Bernard Gotfryd

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 lifeEdit

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"/> This marriage was described in How to Save Your Own Life and Parachutes and Kisses. She has a daughter from this marriage, Molly Jong-Fast. This third marriage also ended in divorce. Jong was then married to Kenneth David Burrows, a New York litigator, 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, and 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, and wrote about that 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 New York City.

Jong is mentioned in "Highlands", the closing song of Bob Dylan's Grammy Award-winning album Time Out of Mind (1997), as a "women author" that the narrator reads. She is also 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. And it's certainly good for kids."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In the early 2020s, Jong was diagnosed with dementia. Template:As of, she resides in a retirement home in Manhattan.<ref name = Alter/>

BibliographyEdit

File:Erica Jong08.JPG
Erica Jong visiting Barnes & Noble in New York.
File:Weiner, Jennifer & Jong, Erica -MBFI 2013 fRF 03.jpg
Jennifer Weiner and Erica Jong at the Miami Book Fair International 2013

FictionEdit

  • 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>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=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-fictionEdit

  • 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)

AnthologyEdit

  • Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex Ed. Erica Jong (2011)

PoetryEdit

  • 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)

AwardsEdit

  • 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

DocumentaryEdit

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

External linksEdit

Template:Library resources box Template:Sister project Template:Sister project

|CitationClass=web }} 

 | name/{{#if:{{#invoke:ustring|match|1=0429521|2=^nm}}
   | Template:Trim/
   | nm0429521/
   }}
 | {{#if: {{#property:P345}}
   | name/Template:First word/
   | find?q=%7B%7B%23if%3A+%0A++++++%7C+%7B%7B%7Bname%7D%7D%7D%0A++++++%7C+%5B%5B%3ATemplate%3APAGENAMEBASE%5D%5D%0A++++++%7D%7D&s=nm
   }}
 }}{{#if: 0429521  {{#property:P345}} | {{#switch: 
 | award | awards = awards Awards for | biography | bio = bio Biography for
 }}}} {{#if: 
 | {{{name}}}
 | Template:PAGENAMEBASE
 }}] at IMDb{{#if: 0429521{{#property:P345}}
 | Template:EditAtWikidata
 | Template:Main other

}}{{#switch:{{#invoke:string2|matchAny|^nm.........|^nm.......|nm|.........|source=0429521|plain=false}} 

 | 1 | 3 =  Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning
 | 4 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning

}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:IMDb name with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|showblankpositional=1| 1 | 2 | id | name | section }}

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://zalansite.site/mediawiki/index.php?title=Erica_Jong&oldid=168856"