Fear of Fifty

Erica Jong made waves with both her lauded and lambasted novel Fear of Flying and her first memoir Seducing the Demon. Now one of her finest works of nonfiction—a New York Times bestseller—is back in print with a new Afterword.

In Fear of Fifty, Erica Jong looks to the second half of her life and “goes right to the jugular of the women who lived wildly and vicariously through Fear of Flying” (Publishers Weekly), delivering highly entertaining stories and provocative insights on sex, marriage, aging, menopause, feminism, and motherhood.

Through humor and introspection, Jong navigates the challenges of maintaining independence and self-worth in a culture that often devalues older women. By blending personal narrative with broader cultural insights, Jong delivered a significant commentary on the female experience in contemporary society.“What Jong calls a midlife memoir is a slice of autobiography that ranks in honesty, self-perception and wisdom with [works by] Simone de Beauvoir and Mary McCarthy... Although Jong's memoir of a Jewish American princess is wittier than either.” — The Sunday Times (UK)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.