Molly Jong-Fast stopped by Good Morning America to discuss her new memoir.
The journalist and podcaster’s How To Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir was published Tuesday by Viking. The book tells the story of Jong-Fast’s relationship with her mother, Fear of Flying author Erica Jong, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2023, the same year Jong-Fast’s husband learned he had a rare cancer. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “the best book Jong-Fast could have written about the worst year of her life.”
GMA co-anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Jong-Fast why she decided to take on a memoir, which “must have been hard to write.”
“It was hard to write,” Jong-Fast said. “I came from a literary tradition of You sit down at the computer and you open a vein. You tell everything. When my husband got cancer, and when things started to really go wrong in my life in 2023, I thought, This could help people.”
Asked if she had any advice about being a caregiver for people with serious health issues, Jong-Fast said, “Put the oxygen mask on yourself first.…I had small self-care rituals that kept me from going crazy.…I had some self-care rituals already from being sober, but I did things like, I ate ice cream for dinner. It was so helpful. I just didn’t worry about dinner. I had an ice cream; I went to bed at 8:30. If you get eight hours, nine hours of sleep, almost anything is doable.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
