“Fear of Flying” not only stands as a notably luxuriant and glowing bloom in the sometimes thistly garden of “raised” feminine consciousness but also belongs to, and hilariously extends, the tradition of “Catcher in the Rye” and “Portnoy’s Complaint” - that of the New York voice on the couch, the smart kid’s lament.”

In his New Yorker review, John Updike said, “The Wife of Bath, were she young and gorgeous, neurotic and Jewish, urban and contemporary, might have written like this. There were also a lot of people, young and old, male and female, who just got the book to skim the sexy parts. Erica Jong had the impression that most men who knew about “Fear of Flying” felt threatened by it. She saw the book as something feminist, and there were women who read it with amazement and decided to try to live - or write - something similar. When she began to be interviewed on talk shows, her father, the former vaudeville musician, advised her, “Never follow a dog act.” We’ve all known men like this, and wince in recognition.ĭoes psychoanalysis fool people, solve them - or entertain them? Her male targets are large and have trouble maneuvering - trucks without wheels. It’s about the strange sort of triumphalism that comes with German guilt how awkward are the overtures between honest poetry and feminist scholarship how psychoanalysis often seems unable to decide whether to fool people, solve them, or entertain them what wasted hours taste like how comforting ephemeral pleasures can be and how we go waltzing along, delivering bad news to lovers who only want inspiration.

“Fear of Flying” is a novel about many things besides sex. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.” Later she would say “Everyone has talent. Sometimes that gloomy conviction made it easier to write honestly, about certain things, the most notorious of which was her interest in “the zipless fuck” a fantasy of love-making with a handsome stranger purely for pleasure: no getting to know him, no ulterior motives or power games. Her heart was pounding, she wanted to turn back, but she felt ‘You must go ahead.’ She tried to calm herself by saying that no publisher was going to risk publishing this book. Sometimes she wrote with crazed precision and at other times she laughed hysterically and had a ball. Jong hoped she was claiming new territory as she wrote the novel. Flying to Vienna was hard for Isadora Wing

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