Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir

A publishing event, a real-life novel, "Fear of Fifty" is the true story of the woman who 20 years ago showed her generation how to soar in "Fear of Flying" and now looks back -- and ahead -- to assess the costs, the rewards and the meaning of the journey.

Opening on her fiftieth birthday, Jong's midlife memoir reads like fast-paced fiction as it flashes back and forth in time to tell at last the truths at the heart of her novels. Poet, novelist, essayist, Jong has forged one of the most visible and volatile careers in American letters, and as a charter member of what she calls the "whiplash generation, " she has had a front seat on the roller coaster American women have been riding for the past decades. Raised to be Doris Day, growing up wanting to be Gloria Steinem, now rearing daughters in the age of Princess Di and Madonna, today's women have had their expectations raised and dashed and raised and dashed again, as they've watched themselves go in and out of style like hemlines. Now, as she and her contemporaries look for answers to the second half of their lives, Jong offers powerful, provocative insights into sex, marriage and aging; feminism -- past, present and future; the writing life; motherhood and family; identity and love, loyalty and loss, drawn through the brilliant prism of her own experience.

In chapters such as "Fear of Fifty, " "The Mad Lesbian in the Attic, " "How I Got to Be the Second Sex, " "How I Got to Be Jewish, " "Fear of Fame, " "Seducing the Muse, " "Dona Juana Gets Smart, " "Becoming Venetian" and "How to Get Married, "