How to Lose Your Mother

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What to expect

Read by the author, Molly Jong-Fast.

An honest, heartbreaking and brutally funny memoir about losing a mother you never really had - and a comfort to anyone who loves someone who drives them crazy.

'I was just bowled over by this book' - Nigella Lawson

'A gripping memoir about mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, loss and healing . . . exquisitely relatable' - Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

'Conveys the mess, terror, loneliness and glory of familial love, in all its riveting complexity' - Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History
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Molly Jong-Fast is the daughter of acclaimed writer Erica Jong. How to Lose Your Mother is Molly’s delicious and despairing memoir about that intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and how that can really mess you up. But with her mother’s heartbreaking descent into dementia, and Molly’s realization that she is going to lose this remarkable woman, it is also a story of love, loss, confusion and deep grief.

Honest, moving and brutally funny, How to Lose Your Mother takes us behind the scenes of a fascinating and sometimes tumultuous family dynamic, revels in the gossipy details of Erica’s famous friends and enemies, and leaves us with a better understanding of our own most precious relationships.

Critics Review

A gripping memoir about mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, loss and healing, and what it means to finally accept your past and become an adult. Despite being raised in the shadow of fame, Molly's story is both uniquely specific and utterly, exquisitely relatable.
Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
By turns hilarious and heartbreaking.
Oprah Daily, The most anticipated books of 2025
This deeply personal and powerful memoir, though witty and snarky, has a bittersweet tone and an often self-critical pose. Political journalist and TV commentator Jong–Fast [...] narrates with raw emotion, intense passion, and a propelling pace
AudioFile
Mesmerizing, intimate, wise, unputdownable, crazily honest, heartbreaking, funny, illuminating – Beautiful and painful at the same time, just like real life.
Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird
An unflinching reflection on the relationship between mothers and daughters.
The New York Times
A riveting reckoning on the challenging ties many have to their parents . . . Both heartbreaking and humorous.
New York Observer
Conveys the mess, terror, loneliness and glory of familial love, in all its riveting complexity.
Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History
Resisting tidy sentiment or easy answers, Jong-Fast dives headfirst into the often-difficult ambiguities of parent-child bonds. The results are stunning.
Publishers Weekly
Sad, dishy and relatable.
The Washington Post
The best book Jong-Fast could have written about the worst year of her life.
Kirkus

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