What truths does Molly Jong-Fast reveal in her heartbreaking book about Erica Jong’s decline?

In her new tell-all memoir, Molly Jong-Fast is getting candid on growing up with a famous mother, Erica Jong, and how difficult her later stages in life were.

In an excerpt from How to Lose Your Mother, Jong-Fast reflected on what it was like for her to have a "larger-than-life feminist icon" as a mother and her eventual decline into dementia. The New York Times has reported that the cultural icon is now 83 years old.

In an interview with the outlet, Molly Jong-Fast said of writing her book:

“It feels like a huge betrayal. I sold out Erica Jong, but it’s sort of in honor of her.” She penned in her memoir, “The tables are turned and I’m doing to her exactly what she always did to me."

Everything we know about Molly Jong-Fast's tell-all memoir about her mother:

For the unversed, Erica Jong became famous in the early 1970s for penning the book Fear of Flying, which was a then-scandalous book about a married woman's desire for casual intimacy. The book was a blockbuster hit and went on to earn praise from the ranks of John Updike and Henry Miller. It even sold a staggering 20 million copies.

As for her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, she is now 46 years old and is most known for being a vocal opponent of the Trump administration. She established a name for herself as a left-wing political commentator during her first tenure and also serves as a special correspondent for Vanity Fair. The Fast Politics host also makes regular appearances on MSNBC as a political analyst.

In her memoir, Molly references her mother's affinity for drafting thinly-veiled versions of those closest to her, including her daughter. Her book sees her reflect on how she felt like she never had autonomous control over her identity growing up.

According to The New York Times, Molly Jong-Fast called the matriarch “a terrible mother” who had a “staggering lack of self-awareness” and was entirely self-absorbed. She was also “constitutionally incapable of being honest," she says. According to her, Erica was a raging alcoholic, due to which it was difficult to pinpoint the exact onset of her dementia.

"She would always say that I was everything to her. She would always tell anyone who listened that I was her greatest accomplishment in life. I always knew that wasn’t the truth," she penned in her book, per Vanity Fair. "I found her distracted and disinterested. Impossible to connect with. I always just assumed this was some personal failing on my part, just assumed the problem was me," she goes on. "Everyone told me she loved me so much, but I never felt all that loved. Later on, I realized that I never felt that anyone loved me."

In the memoir, she also recounted the string of events that occurred in the week that her mother was diagnosed.

"Mom could still remember who I was, but often not a lot else. Sometimes she didn’t remember her grandchildren. Sometimes she didn’t remember that she is—that she was—a writer. Things didn’t fit together for her anymore. Sometimes she was a little girl, and sometimes her parents were still alive," she recalled.

Erica Jong lived with her husband, Ken, Molly Jong-Fast's stepfather, until he died.

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Molly Jong-Fast's tell-all book comes out this Tuesday, June 3.

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