If you are intrigued by this sometimes maddening journey, by all means, overcome your fears. Vanessa gets her groove back on a spiritual retreat to holy caves in India. The book also takes some ill-advised turns, and here, Dying is just dying for a stronger editor’s hand. Isadora sends Vanessa a spacey sci-fi missive via email that inexplicably gets snapped up by Hollywood. Vanessa gets a facelift, which “stacks up there with all the other female rituals - genital mutilation, footbinding, whalebone corsets, Spanx.”Īmid the agony of watching her parents diminish and die, “the gradual transformation of a difficult parent into a demi-saint,” Vanessa muses about beloved daughter Glinda’s struggle with addiction, becomes a grandmother and fights with her sisters about money and pearls. Jong’s passages about the humor and heartbreak of growing older are knowing, soul-bearing, moving and funny. In Flying as in Dying, sex without connection is not the answer. I found it irreverent, funny, tender and very wise and it made me feel more alive RACHEL. Zipless' potential dates for Vanessa include a relentless sadist, a man who wants to be her personal slave (not as a good as it sounds, warns Isadora) and another who says what she really needs is Jesus. Erica Jong (Author) rrp 9.99 Description I loved Fear of Dying. is about as satisfying as Tinder, if you read Vanity Fair’s recent takedown of the sex-swipe site.

This time, older and wiser Isadora acts as an adviser and shaman to Vanessa.Īgainst her friend’s advice, Vanessa turns to a website called Zipless, inspired by Isadora’s signature catchphrase (the zipless, uh, sex act), in hopes of finding a discreet gentleman to “celebrate eros one afternoon a week.” Vanessa’s best friend is Isadora Wing, the heroine of Fear of Flying whose pursuit of the magical sexual encounter propelled her into an affair at a therapists’ convention. Vanessa’s parents are declining, as is her beloved dog, Belinda. Asher is 20 years older than Vanessa and they read obits together more often than they make love. Jong’s latest novel, Fear of Dying, is the story of actress Vanessa Wonderman, 60, happily married to the wonderful and wealthy Asher … and longing for more. Erica Jong’s ribald, raunchy novel Fear of Flying coined an unprintable phrase for sex without emotional entanglement and made her a feminist literary lioness in 1973.

Fear of dying erica jong