How to Save Your Own Life

Erica Jong—like Isadora Wing, her fictional doppelganger—was rich and famous, brainy and beautiful, and soaring high with erotica and marijuana in 1977, the year this book was first published.

Erica/Isadora are the perfect literary and libidinous guides for those readers who want to learn about—or just be reminded of—the sheer hedonistic innocence of the time. How to Save Your Own Life was praised by People for being "shameless, sex-saturated and a joy," and hailed by Anthony Burgess as one of the ninety-nine best novels published in English since 1939.

In a wild whirlwind of passion and liberation, Jong delivered a seductive and revelatory tale that is as timeless as it is audacious.Erica Jong grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and attended Barnard College, where she majored in writing and literature, and she later received her MA in eighteenth-century English literature from Columbia University. She left halfway through the PhD program to write her groundbreaking first novel, Fear of Flying, which went on to sell more than thirty-seven million copies worldwide. She is also the author of many award-winning books of poetry, novels, and nonfiction including Sappho’s Leap, Fanny, Any Woman’s Blues, Fear of Fifty, and Fear of Dying. She lives in New York City and Connecticut. Her work has had a major impact on women’s lives all over the world.