Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir

By Erica Jong

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006017739X
• ISBN13: 9780060177393
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 325 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.5" x 6.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Fear of Fifty gave me plenty to reflect on

My measure of a good book is how long it makes you think after reading it, and this book has had me thinking for days. I think Erica has been very raw and honest in detailing her feelings about her life and experiences. Refreshing to read about someone who has been married more times than me. Also contains the best last line I have ever read

Ageless Erica

Firstly, let me point out that I am 21 years old, and almost didn't buy the book because I was afraid it would be some paean to "mid-life" that I just wouldn't get. The Jongroupie in me won out, though - and I am SO glad she did. Anyone who has ever read an Erica novel, anyone who ever plans to, anyone who yearns to hear a profoundly female voice speak honestly yet comfortingly into her/his mind's ear - this is a must-have. Besides answering every "Where does Isadora end and Erica begin?" question, this book contains a good dozen touching poems, countless anecdotes, and the sweetly detailed account of how Erica met her current husband. Erica writes about being a writer, a Jew, a feminist, a scholar, a daughter, a mother, a wife - a WOMAN. It is a novel, I believe, about WOMANHOOD, first and foremost, from the pen of a woman who has seen hell and high water during her 50 years.Far from being a boring mid-life memoir, the book reads like a novel and a really fun one at that, with all the feminine feminism, the wry jokes, the clever commentary and the juicy sex scenes of Erica's other books. Unlike her novels, however, this book draws the bold authoress out from between the lines and places her right before the reader - beautifully unembellished, womanly, young enough to take another ride on the rollercoaster and old enough to truly appreciate it.

i love this book at age 28

i love to read people writing their own story.and this one can be the best of them.erica share what's deep in her heart,and doesn't afraid to face her wrong and say sorry.this book helps women more for there are something only women meet in their life time and somthing only women understand.

Erica Jong Grows Up

Fear of Fifty is Erica Jong's best book. Fans will recognize all the memorable episodes of her life as she revisits them, this time through the eyes of a wiser woman.It seems that Erica Jong has finally grown up. Gone is the obsession with sex and the dependence on men that characterized her earlier books. In this book, Ms. Jong comes to terms with the contradictions of her existence, and in so doing, very intelligently points out the wild contradictions of her generation and of our contemporary society.The best section comes at the end, where Ms. Jong lays out her own personal feminist treatise. This section, although highly theoretical, is endowed with a clarity and passion that should rally every single woman reader, regardless of age, to the cause.Ms. Jong quite rightly chastises women as well as men for causing and maintaining the feminist backlash. Encouraging harmony, comprehension and unity, she calls for a new feminism that would include all women regardless of class, race, age, sexual orientation or profession. She exalts the creativity and artistic or professional ability of women, as well as their capacity for motherhood and caretaking. In fact, she suggests that the two sides of a woman are complementary rather than imcompatible. This book really clarified for me the situation of women in our Western society. I highly recommend it to anyone of any age interested in art, culture, literature, history or feminism. Although the content is highly intellectual in some respects, Ms. Jong's entertaining, passionate and humorous voice is always present. And it is absolutely not a "woman's book"; it is vital that as many men as possible read Fear of Fifty.

"It is a wonderful book for this new Men-Women era".

Comprehensive,wise and sensitive Woman is Erica Jong, besides a beautiful Spirit behind, she touches the soul of the fears and needs on Women and the realistic way of writing a beautiful biography that will trigger the awareness to Women to express and give their love to life and for Men to understand and learn to love them. Her poem is a delicate reminiscense to what some Men love on a real Woman. Congratulations Erica, just beautiful!.