Fear of Flying | Suggested Reading

Fear of Flying Related Titles

Jong traced the further fortunes of Isadora Wing in How to Save Your Own Life (1977) and Parachutes and Kisses (1984). Neither book was as successful as the first, in part because — retaining the quasi-autobiographical premise — Isadora Wing is presented as the author of a wildly popular erotic novel.

One theme becomes the effect of public success on private life. The books are less funny, less bawdy, less exaggerated, and less universal. When, in How to Save Your Own Life, Isadora Wing enters million-dollar negotiations with Hollywood agents or, in Parachutes and Kisses, faces single motherhood in a fourteen-room house with a Mercedes and a nanny, the books provide the attractions of roman a clef; they are read for biographical gossip about Erica Jong and no longer serve as vehicles for everywoman's fantasies and anger.