Shelf Life: Molly Jong-Fast

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

In 2023, author Erica Jong appeared in Shelf Life to mark the 50th anniversary of her novel Fear of Flying, for which her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, had penned the foreword to the new edition. Now, Jong-Fast herself is joining the column, timed to the release of her fourth book, How to Lose Your Mother, which chronicles the year her mother was diagnosed with dementia; her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; and both her father-in-law and stepfather died.

“I wanted my story to be in the vein of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking—the year of your life when the bottom falls out,” Jong-Fast says of her latest work. “Telling my story helped ground me when I needed stability. I wanted to show readers that despite everything, I made it through—and others can. It wasn’t easy. It still isn’t easy. But I’m okay. If just one person dealing with overwhelming circumstances reads this and feels hopeful, then writing the book was worthwhile.”

The Manhattan-born, -raised, and -based MSNBC political analyst is the host of the podcast Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast, as well as a Vanity Fair special correspondent; went to Barnard College and earned her MFA from Bennington College; has talked extensively about getting sober at 19 (when she wrote her first book, Normal Girl); is a self-described extrovert; is not a crier; and has three kids and two dogs.

Good at: critiquing the far-right; throwing dinner parties; not falling apart; not having to be liked; having FOMO.

Bad at: cooking; staying up late; writing as therapy.

Likes: Fornasetti candles; earnestness; Gore Vidal.

Peruse her book recommendations below.

The book that:…helped me through loss:

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I absolutely love that book.

…kept me up way too late:

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney. It’s just one of the great coming-of-age books.

…made me weep uncontrollably:

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov.

…I recommend over and over again:

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi. I recently re-read it, and it really holds up.