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.
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Review
Advance praise for
The Sex Doctors in the Basement“Molly Jong-Fast is that rarest of beings: a writer you’d want as a friend. The Sex Doctors in the Basement is a post-postmodern memoir, written by a young woman who has sussed out all our collective dirty secrets–who shtupped who, who had their teeth capped, who gobbled Hostess cupcakes on the sly, why being thin matters more than anything else–as only a painfully clear-eyed kid who grew up on the Upper East Side and refused to play by the unspoken rules of her class and time could. The result is a funny, affectionate, nutty, beyond-irreverent tale of celebrity dysfunction and down-to-earth truths.”
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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. Reading Sex Doctors is like reading about growing up in my own family, only Jewish. 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–plus you’ll learn some stunning new vocabulary words.”
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Moon Unit Zappa, author of
America the Beautiful“A heartfelt, funny, bittersweet saga of growing up fame-adjacent. It was Molly Jong-Fast’s peculiar–and peculiarly fascinating–fate to be born into a cosmopolitan vortex of celebrity, family, and sexual revolution. Her skill at translating the naked and hellish privilege bequeathed the spawns of the famous gives her stories the high-impact slap and tickle of truth. A unique and hugely amusing Manhattan testimony.”
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Jerry Stahl, author of
I, Fatty and
Permanent Midnight“Molly Jong-Fast has mined the mother lode of literature–the family–with sass and style and soul. As the daughter of a famous woman (Erica Jong) and the granddaughter of an infamous man (Howard Fast), she has spun what Mark Twain called ‘bringin’ up’ into a sparkling romp at once killingly funny and heartbreakingly poignant. Read Sex Doctors in the Basement
and relish the humor of this generation’s new Dorothy Parker.”
–
Kitty Kelley, author of
The Family: The Real Story Behind the Bush Dynasty
