Jong, Erica [Mann] (1942–), born in New York City, graduated from Barnard College (1963). Her books include
Fear of Flying (1973), about an intense, neurotic New York woman in her thirties enjoying a lively sexual experience for two weeks with an existentialist Englishman;
How To Save Your Own Life (1977), a sequel in which the woman's first novel becomes a best seller and she prepares to write another while enjoying sexual encounters with a man and a woman;
Fanny (1980), a picaresque novel in a pseudo‐18th‐century style, written from the point of view of a woman;
Parachutes and Kisses (1984), about later experiences of the heroine of
Fear of Flying;
Serenissima (1987), concerning an American movie actress in Venice who is mesmerized as the daughter of Shylock and the friend of Shakespeare;
Any Woman's Blues (1990), about a woman addicted to sex;
Inventing Memory (1997), about four generations of women in a Jewish family in America; and
Sappho's Leap (2003), a novel imagining the adventures of the Greek poet.
Witches (1981), a work of nonfiction, investigates the whole concept of the witch, and
What Do Women Want? (1998) collects prose pieces about the changing lives of women in the twentieth century.
Becoming Light: Poems New and Selected (1991) includes poetry from her collections of the 1970s and 1980s.
Fear of Fifty (1994) is a memoir.
