Girl [Maladjusted]: True Stories from a Semi-Celebrity Childhood [Paperback]

Molly Jong-Fast (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2006

Molly Jong-Fast grew up in a town house with a pink door and paintings of ladies playing naked Twister. There were world-famous therapists living in her cellar, a secretary with a brain tumor, a nanny who was a numbers runner, and grandparents who revealed that they had sex on their first date.
Leading therapists agree: a normal childhood.
In Girl [Maladjusted], Molly Jong-Fast takes us on a tour of her big fat Jewish bohemian upbringing. With the same keen insight, effortless cool, and buoyant wit that won her legions of devoted readers in Normal Girl, she offers a riotous and affecting coming-of-age story that is both uniquely weird and weirdly universal.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jong-Fast (Normal Girl) writes about growing up with her eccentric, bohemian mother (novelist Erica Jong, author of Fear of Flying) in a Manhattan townhouse with a hot pink door. She pads the memories with sarcastic commentary about her love of chocolate, daytime TV and recreational drugs; her expulsions from school and success at rehab; and her experiences with "legions of servants," resulting in a memoir that's long on jokes but short on substance. The 25-year-old author remembers her lesbian great aunt who, as an old woman, shocked the family by holding hands with a male rabbi; her grandfather, novelist Howard Fast, who was obsessed with the idea that the New York Times Book Review hated him; and her mom's various wildly inappropriate boyfriends, as well as the one who worked out (a divorce lawyer). She entertains with tales of her childhood encounters with a long line of therapists—who inevitably and boringly questioned her about how her mother's erotic writing affected her psyche—and her friendship with a beautiful, kind girl who turned out not to be perfect. Unfortunately, the stories' potential juiciness fizzles into snide remarks about the unattractive hijinks of the privileged. Ironic yet lacking insight, this collection provides an illuminating window into the world of the kids of "semi-celebrities," but its characters remain frustratingly unsympathetic.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Jong-Fast has an unusually wry sense of humor. . . . Her life so far has, in fact, been curiously full of nutty episodes [and] colorful characters.”
–The New York Sun

“A funny, sly, affectionate, nutty, beyond-irreverent tale of celebrity dysfunction and down-to-earth truths.”
–Daphne Merkin, author of Enchantment and Dreaming of Hitler

“Molly Jong-Fast proves that it’s never too late to have someone else’s happy childhood. Molly is a smart, wickedly funny absurdity magnet. (Or is that absurdity magnate?) Run, don’t walk to smell this new book, laugh out loud, and be swept up in a very specific Tasmanian devil-esque kind of madness.”
–Moon Unit Zappa, author of America the Beautiful

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Villard (January 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812970748
• ISBN-13: 978-0812970746
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Molly Jong-Fast (born August 19, 1978) is an American author. She wrote about her wild life as a girl in 1990s New York.

She is the daughter of Erica Jong and Jonathan Fast. She is the granddaughter of Howard Fast. She is the author of a novel, Normal Girl,[1] and a memoir, Girl [Maladjusted]. She is currently at work on her third book also to be published by in 2011 Random House called The Social Climbers Handbook.

She has 3 small and very surly children, all of whom like to talk to her at once when she is on the phone.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nepotism, Pt. 2---Electric Boogaloo, May 30, 2007

By 

Anais Nin "bibiophantasmagorical" (Brooklyn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girl [Maladjusted]: True Stories from a Semi-Celebrity Childhood (Paperback)

I'm not sure if Molly Jong-Fast thought that joking about the nepotism that allowed her second (and second rate) novel to be published would endear the few wary-yet-game readers she may have had left to her, but if that was the case, the joke is on her. She is not funny. She is not interesting. She is not talented. She comes across as spoiled, self-indulgent, and, most horrifyingly, BORING. She not only steals her mother's material (Material that had already been used by her mother, the actual writer)but she sucks in the retelling of it. For a bragart who talks so much, Molly Jong-Fast has very little to say. This book blew. As did 'Normal Girl'. Get a real job, Miranda.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A PEEK BEHIND THE PINK DOOR, February 27, 2010

By 

Laurel-Rain Snow "Rain" "Rainy Days" (Fresno, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Girl [Maladjusted]: True Stories from a Semi-Celebrity Childhood (Paperback)

Molly Jong-Fast's memoir chronicles her childhood and young adulthood as the daughter of famous writer Erica Jong (Fear of Flying) and grandfather Howard Fast (Spartacus (North Castle Books)), with all the aspects, good and bad, of that celebrity existence. Living in a "townhouse with a pink door and paintings of ladies playing naked Twister," her childhood also featured many visits to therapists, numerous nannies, and private schools where she felt like a misfit most of the time.

Much of what she describes is told in a wry, self-deprecatory fashion, and she habitually renames her celebrity acquaintances and therapists (like calling one woman Adolf Hitler), allegedly to avoid lawsuits, but I also think she enjoyed the comic value of such renaming.

Some parts of Girl [Maladjusted]: True Stories from a Semi-Celebrity Childhood were enlightening and enjoyable, while other sections seemed so uneventful as to be irrelevant. I skimmed these sections, I must admit. With most of this book seemingly dedicated to what it was like to be the daughter of a celebrity, there were surprisingly few descriptions of mother/daughter interactions. In fact, the few descriptions that did come across seemed like footnotes to the real story, whatever that was supposed to be.

This book was only mildly interesting, which is why I'm awarding it three stars.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars context is everything, October 21, 2005

By 

T. LeGrand "luvisagoodthing" (arizona mountains) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sex Doctors in the Basement: True Stories from a Semi-Celebrity Childhood (Hardcover)

It's impossible to consider jong-fast's work without the context of her mother's. But Erica Jong is sort of an institution of modern literature so it's sort of an appropriate cultural touchstone. So whether you dislike Fear of Flying and Jong's body of work or, like me, have loved Jong since you snuck and read your mom's copy- you still have that familiar backdrop to jong-fast's witty, moving and sly accounts of growing up in the time and place she did. Her essays are stronger than her fiction. That being said, her fiction doesn't suck. I agreed with her grandfather's summation of her fiction skills as described in one of the essays. The fact that she's written so well and at such a young age is remarkable. I look forward to seeing what she'll write next.