- Welcome to Forum.

I'm Mina Kim.

You may know Molly Jung fast for her political analysis and sharp critiques of the President in his administration on M-S-N-B-C or in her Vanity Fair columns, or her podcast, fast Politics.

But Jung Fast's new book is not about politics.

It's about her mother, Erica Jung, the writer famous for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying, which was hailed as a groundbreaking feminist work that fame meant.

Jung Fast struggled to get the love and attention she longed for from her alcoholic mother, who was often more focused on maintaining her fame than on her daughter.

Her memoir is called, how To Lose Your Mother.

And Molly Jong Fast joins me now.

Welcome to Forum Molly.

- Thank you for having me, - Mina.

- So, - Even though your new book is not about politics, I do want to ask you about politics to start, just given everything that happened over the weekend, president Trump's decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

As someone who has followed this president's actions closely for years, he promised to end involvement in foreign wars.

What do you, what do you make of all this?

- You know, it's, look, it's really disappointing.

I think we are, I think there are few people on the partisan democratic side who are dis, who aren't very disappointed by this.

But I also think there are some Trumpers who really did believe that when he said he would, I mean, Trump, there was one thing Trump promised again and again as late as his inauguration speech, that he would be known as a unifier and a peacemaker and a deal maker.

I mean, at every point he said, you know, I'm gonna make the greatest deals.

I don't believe, I mean, so much of his 2016 candidacy was that Hillary was somehow more involved in foreign wars and that he would keep the United States out of foreign wars, and that the Iran deal was so terrible.

And the irony here is that the Iran deal was set up to avoid something like what happened on Saturday.

- So then do you think he'll face political consequences?

There is a lot of reporting about fishers among his base commentators, prominent ones like Tucker Carlson and others who are very much against this action.

I'm wondering if you think he'll pay a political price.

- I mean, there have been so many times when we've seen Republicans pay a political price, but not necessarily Trump.

Trump has a very different kind of, he occupies a very different kind of political gravity than much of the Republican party.

So it's very hard to predict what will stick to him and what won't.

You'll remember the COVID, which was many people think very mishandled.

Again, it's a once in a lifetime pandemic.

So there is no, you, there are more people you can point to who handled it poorly than handled it well.

But even that at the time seemed very mismanaged by him.

But he did not face political fallout for it.

- Yeah.

I guess it will also be a question of the degree and the quote unquote success potentially of any retaliation from Iran.

We're seeing reports from CNN from Israeli sources that Iran fired missiles toward US spaces in Qatar and Iraq.

I, I mean, I guess then the question is, what about for things like that?

For things like not seeking Congress's approval?

Yeah, yeah.

- I mean, look, Congress has really been so derelict in their responsibilities at every point with this second Trump administration.

We saw Republicans who knew better vote to confirm RFK Junior.

We now see RFK junior firing huge swaths of HHS.

I mean, that seems like it's absolutely gonna end in disaster, right?

We've seen so much, Congress has just gone along with almost everything.

And the tariffs are a great example.

There was congressional power to stop the tariffs.

They refuse to use it.

There's this, you know, if Congress ever had power, this is the moment, right?

Because Trump's big, beautiful bill, I mean that with all the caveats and, and quotation marks possible, that Bill right, winding its way through the Senate is leverage.

Right?

They actually have leverage.

They just refuse to use it, right?

These, if a smart Congress would say to, to Trump, you know, we have this leverage and we need you to, you know, not have ice arresting people or not go to war with blue cities or all, you know, they could have a laundry list of things they'd want from Trump because they have a little bit of power, but they refuse to use it because Mike Johnson is really just sort of serves at the pleasure of Donald Trump and has been installed there to rubber stamp whatever Trump wants.

- So then how should Democrats respond to this moment?

And are you confident they will in an appropriate or meaningful way that will reflect the Democratic base?

I guess?

- So what I see from these marches, from the millions of people who are going out into the streets, which is it's one thing to vote, it's one thing to tweet, it's one thing to give money.

It's a whole other thing to go out with your children or your parents on a weekend day, right?

And go out on the, on the streets because you're so upset.

I mean, that I think is a, is a real thing we're seeing.

You know, I, I'm not entirely sure of the calculations, but there's some ca some people think it's close to 1% of America was on the streets.

Those are crazy numbers.

So think about that.

And this is a base that is furious.

And if you talk to them, they tell you they're furious with leadership.

Why are they furious with leadership?

'cause the leadership is not reflecting the rage that is getting them out into the streets.

And I think that honestly, this is a moment for legislation and a moment for a peaceful pushback that democratic leadership could enact and just seems to not be able to meet the moment.

- What do you think is most important for us to understand about what drives this president?

There are so many questions that remain now about what's next, right?

He's floated regime change.

Is he gonna contain this or is he gonna just sort of go with whatever?

And I think the question that I think you've been really good at putting your finger on are the kinds of things that really drive Trump's decision making, even when it feels really contradictory.

- Yeah.

So here's what I would say.

I think there are a couple of different factors.

We don't know what's gonna happen with Iran.

We don't know how much pushback Trump's face.

I mean, if you read the, the best reporting about Trump, I think comes from the New York Times.

Those guys are just, you have literally every single one of those Trump reporters are really good.

And so they really, if anyone has a handle on what's going on in that White House, it's the New York Times.

And you know, there's a lot there.

And, and I was unsurprised to read, read what I read today in the New York Times about how they had really good, very sourced multiple bylined peace about how Trump was basically watching Fox News, which anyone who was in Trump's first administration, anyone who paid attention then would know that Fox News is often the assignment editor when it comes to Trump.

I would just say that I, in my mind, there are larger structural problems that Donald Trump has shined the light on with American democracy.

Right?

Like Congress not taking its job seriously, not using, you know, they should be controlling power of the purse.

You should not have Russ v in the office of OMB controlling how congressionally appointed con congressional money is spent.

Right?

So there are all these different ways in which Trumpism has shown that the American Congress is not doing what it should be doing.

That said, it's, it's impossible to predict Trump, right?

So many of us in pundit world thought that two weeks was a blow off.

That two weeks meant he wasn't gonna do anything.

- Yeah.

One of the articles was struck by was when you also wrote a piece for Vanity Fair about, you know, the president's deployment of troops in Los Angeles.

And it feels like, and you said that he's projecting panic, not power, but you also talked about how important it always is for him to project power to project strength.

Do you think that's playing a role in this?

- Yeah, and I also think, I mean, there's been, look, Republicans and neocons more specifically have long dreamed of bombing Iran.

This is not some new idea.

This has been sort of, you know, they are, these guys have long thought that that was the, you know, if they could just get in there.

It is.

By the way, just any time America goes into something like this, unless it ends up being one of those times, and there have been times when we've gotten out of it and, and, and it hasn't, it hasn't bloomed into something bigger.

And I, I hope and pray this is another one of those times, but, but we don't know, right?

I mean, now we're in a sort of wait and see mode, but every time America's gone into the regime change game, or even just the, you know, foreign wars game, it's always been really just such a disaster.

So it's hard.

And it's funny 'cause it's like the one thing that Trump really had broad bipartisan support on was not getting involved in the Middle East.

And, and, and, and, and for whatever reason, this, you can no longer say that Trump will not be involved in the Middle East.

- Yeah.

So then how should we, you know, as a people, as an electorate that could be entering essentially a war under the leadership of this president, what do you think we need to keep in mind?

What do you need, what do you think we need to be really watching for?

- So I would say the most important thing is that democratic electeds at Republican electeds, if there are any, who are brave, I'm not sure there are at this point, but democratic electeds need to be, I mean, one of the things Chris Murphy has done so effectively and so well is narrate what's happening.

The problem is, it is not a gray moment for the mainstream media, right?

It's just a much smaller, you know, it's a sort of shriveled husk of what it was eight years ago.

And there's a number of reasons for that though.

One of them is that Congress failed to ever legislate technology, right?

So technology, you can have to all news sites that are completely contain unverified news, and there's no regulation against that, right?

You can't put stuff that's not true on ca, you know, there are regulations for many, many different kinds of media outlets, but the internet know, right?

So that is, I think, part of how we got here.

But there's just a lot less media and there's a lot less accurate media.

And so it's very hard to know what's really happening.

And that is why it falls to democratic politicians to narrate this as much as possible.

- We're talking this hour with political writer and commentator Molly Jung Fast, who has written a new book, not about politics, it's actually an unsparing memoir about her mother Erica Jung, who she describes as self-absorbed and constitutionally incapable of being honest.

And how all of that affected her in her new, in her new memoir called How to Lose Your Mother.

And what do you wanna ask her?

Tell Molly you can email forum at KQE d.org, find us on our social channels at KQED forum, or call us at (866) 733-6786.

You know, Molly, there were moments when you were describing your mother, and I was just wondering if part of the things that you are able to recognize in President Trump come in part from experiences with your mother?

- I definitely have some insight into erratic baby boomers who gr who came of age in Manhattan during the seventies and eighties.

You know, I have some, I have some insight into that.

I think for sure.

You know, there's so, there was so much there being spent in the media diagnosing Trump, you know, but he is, you know, he's, he's a white male baby boomer who comes from a certain very privileged socioeconomic class, which is not, which is not a, you know, it's not, I mean, I also came from a lot of privilege, but I just don't think he's so, his, his problems are so different than a lot of people in that generation.

- Yeah.

Tell us about your mom, who you write about with the love and adoration of a daughter who, you know, admires what she achieved, right?

Yeah.

But also, you know, with the pain of having been neglected of, of having experienced her alcoholism and even at times, you know, her betrayal in terms of the way that, that, that she would write about you.

But, but tell us about the part that you love and adore, the things that really made your mom, your mom to you.

Someone who you describe as, as a person you burned for first.

Let's, let's go there first.

- Well, you know, I read, I wrote this book because they, because I had a, a platform, which is this new phrase that, you know, I, they public, you know, there were publishers who came to me who were like, you should write a book.

And I wanted to write a book, but I didn't wanna write like a disposable book.

I didn't wanna write a book that wouldn't be relevant in six months.

I wanted to write a book that was really, if you're gonna buy a book, like $26 is a, is actually quite a lot of money.

And I wanted to write a book that people would relate to, and I just didn't see a lot of stuff that was worthy.

A lot of stuff that came to me seemed more like a magazine article.

But what happened was that when I started working on this book, I started to, when my mom started to get dementia, I started to run into a lot of friends who would be like, oh, my parents are failing.

Oh, I'm here visiting my dad.

Oh, we put my mom on Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare, medicare to try to like, it was so expensive, it was so hard to do.

And when I started doing it, I was like, this is the hardest thing I've ever done.

And I got sober when I was 19.

Like, I know how to do, you know, to, I can, I can do hard things and, you know, to quote Glennon Doyle.

But, but I, but this, I was like, this is really hard.

And so I thought, well, this is really worthy of a book.

And, you know, I didn't write this book 'cause I'm Erika Jong's daughter, and there's so much interesting stuff there because like, honestly, nobody cares.

Like, you know, the world is, I mean, like, it's not really what I wanted to focus on.

I mean, I, it's, there's certainly parts of it that are interesting if you're an Erika JG fan or a band of mine.

But really mostly it's meant to be the story of what it's like to have elderly parents who you wanna do right by.

But you may be mad at for any number of reasons, real and imagined or real.

And, and to have kids that you need to be there for and who are, you know, just, and you have a job too.

I mean, just the sort of craziness of being in that sandwich generation.

And I felt that, and what I know now from this book coming out and has been out for, I'm in my sort of third week of book touring, is that people really relate to it and felt like people weren't, there was not enough writing about the experience that we find ourselves in.

Yeah.

- I mean, you're describing the fact that yes, you have a job, you have kids.

You also, at that time had a husband who was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas at a time when yeah.

Your mother had all these needs as well through a life where I think it felt like her needs always superseded yours.

- Yeah.

So my, I mean like a third of all Americans will get cancer.

Those are crazy numbers.

Like that is an insane number.

And he, we got very lucky because he had neuroendocrine cancer in the pancreas and not pancreatic cancer.

So he's in remission and it turned out to be great, but there was so much uncertainty about what kind of cancer it was and when the surgery would be and what we would see when they did the surgery.

There was just so much back and forth and that uncertainty was extremely hard to deal with.

And then also having teenage kids and not knowing how to transmit to them that what this meant for them, right?

What does this mean?

What does this mean?

I mean, one of the, I try not to write about my kids or talk about them, but they were definitely, so I tried to talk about them as a collective.

- Yeah.

- But there was a lot of like anxi, you know, can I stay in, in my school?

Will this mean, what does this mean for me?

And it was really tricky.

And so part of why I wrote this book was because I had gotten sober when I was 19.

I saw how my experience could benefit other people.

And I thought, this is a book where if you have a parent with dementia or a parent where you just can't make peace with this or a spouse that's sick, like you can get a lot of the my experience and it's useful.

Yeah.

- Hopefully.

So there's, that's the universal part of it, but there's also the very specific part of it, which is your experience of her being Erica Zong, who, you know, known for writing the, the book that was considered, you know, like a groundbreaking novel of second wave feminism called Fear of Flying in 1973, where she's really candid about sex and about a woman who is pursuing it and who writes about, about you and who writes in a way where, what would she say to you?

Like when you write, you have to open a vein.

- Yes.

So that, I mean, that's sort of the Writerly school.

And in some ways that's why I made, I tried, I don't wanna say I made this book good because that sounds very arrogant, but one of the reasons why I took a long time writing this book and why I, you know, got all the, you know, I had a really great, I, I had a great editor, but I also hired another great editor was because, was because I come from a literary tradition where books really matter, right.

I, I'm the daughter of granddaughter of writers not.

So, as much as I really enjoy being on television, 'cause I, I find television to be incredibly fun and I love my podcast, but, but I, I I feel like a book is, is everything.

So I, I really wanted it to be a book that you, you know, I I I have my experience in there, but I also really tried to make it something that was both readable but also literary.

And, you know, I base it on a year of magical thinking.

Hmm.

So the idea was that there'll be, that you could have a year and, and Didion's such a great look, everyone wants to be Joan Didion.

That's not, that's not a new idea.

But she's, and and I find her politics to be too far to the right for me, but, and especially when you read her stuff about the sixties, it's like, it feels very, very reactionary, but, and very involved in class and whatever.

But the point of this story is I found her, I find her reporting to be despite that really beautiful, her prose to be beautiful.

And so that was the, you know, I felt even though you don't necessarily have writers like that so much anymore, that was my ins you know, the inspiration for my career has always been that I wanted to be, did, you know, I wanted to be Didion.

It's a very high level inspiration and I'll probably be more like Irma Bombeck, but, you know, Irma Bombeck is great deal.

- Well, you do have this line that really stood out to you in your book where you say, my mother was famous and it changed her makeup, changed the makeup of her cells, like a smoker who gets lung cancer.

How did fame affect your mom?

- So, I mean, I never knew her unfamous because she had me in 1978 and my, the book came out in 1973, but I saw how hard it was for her.

And I saw this in my grandfather Howard fast too, that they, they couldn't get unfamous.

And, and look, I think it depends, I always ask people, if I always ask people who are famous or Mo you can't really ask famous people.

I'll ask their spouses if I can, if I know them well enough, I'll say, what, what were they, you know, how did you keep them normal?

Or how, what did you do?

You know, what happened?

And it tends to be from what, from what little I've been able to glean that the people who do the worst are the people who get famous.

The younger, the younger you get famous the worst, worst.

And then the other thing, which I think is, was really true for my mom is that the worst is if you get famous for one thing, it's much better to get famous like on a television show or for writing a series of books or for like, the worst kind of thing is that you just sort of do one huge thing and then nothing can be as good as that.

That, and that was my mom's problem.

And that I think was very tough for her.

- How did that play out, especially in her parenting of you?

- So I, I don't know that my mom's not great parenting was actually her fault because my grandmother was also really a terrible parent.

So, and my grandmother was, I think this is a little bit interesting, maybe not, I can't, the one thing that has that, you know, I'm not so famous, but the one thing that I have completely lost track of from doing all these interviews is what is boring and what is, you know, just sort of good interview fodder.

So if I get boring, please tell me because I worry that I'm, but my grandma was friends with the wife of Jackson Pollock, a woman called Lee Krasner.

And Lee Krasner became a pretty famous painter in the fifties.

And my grandmother could not stand it because she felt that she was a much better painter than Lee Krasner.

And so she had this sort of innate, not innate, but she had a theory that her daughters had derailed her career.

And I really believe that she sort of passed that down to my mother and her sisters.

And so I think that was one of the big problems that my mom had, was this feeling that maybe had my, you know, the children were somehow destructive to your career.

- I wanna invite listeners into the conversation wondering what parts of Molly Jung fast's story about her mother resonate with you?

Have you or someone you know, wrestled with fame or celebrity or losing that fame?

Have you struggled with alcohol use or had a family member who did?

Do you have unresolved issues with a parent who's experiencing dementia?

And Noel on Discord writes, it's a hazard being a family member of a novelist.

Did Molly Jong fast read Alice Walker's daughter's memoir?

- I did not read it, but I love Rebecca Walker.

She's really talented and yes, it is absolutely a hazard.

I mean, look, the thing that I just wanna say about these women is we, I truly believe this about my mother, and I certainly believe this about Alice and Rebecca, Rebecca's my age.

So it's different.

But that generation of women, we owe a huge debt.

I feel I owe a huge debt of gratitude too.

I mean, remember my mother was born in 1942, women could not have a bank account, right?

She, I mean, she told a story about, about dropping out of her doctoral program that sounded a lot like being sexually harassed.

So I, you know, I feel like you don't get any of the women that we are, me or Taffy or Maggie Haberman or any of these women, you know, Kara Swisher, we don't get to be these people unless the Erica Js and the Alice Walkers, you know, really do walk through fire to help us move along.

And, you know, while we don't have the kind of progress we may want, we are further along than we were in nine, you know, in 1972.

- Yeah.

In, I, I think that's the part of that that comes through in this.

While you are very unsparing, which I think your mother even expressed in like a New York Times interview, being proud of whether or not she reads the book or not, or if she has, I think is probably a question for you, but Yeah.

Yeah.

But that there is this part of you, or, or maybe it was going through the writing of this process that has been able to, to reconcile or resolve some of the things that you now, because she has dementia feel like could be, you know, unreconcilable or irreconcilable.

- Yeah.

Oh, I am very, I I mean I, I don't think I exist without her.

I mean obviously there's the mechanics of being her daughter, but then, and also the nepotism.

But then there's just, you know, she, women that like us who have full lives, you know, we are the product of that.

And I very much am.

So I feel very grateful towards her.

And I also feel like what, you know, when you read, I mean it's the New York Times piece had some really good writing about this, but, you know, my mom's ear sometimes when she was, you know, she wrote a lot when she was pregnant with me.

And this idea of women who could, and again, having it all is, is a very loaded phrase, right?

But who could have more in their lives than my, our mother's generation.

Very lucky.

So, and especially in a moment now when we see that some of our real, you know, we see people being - L-L-G-B-T-Q.

Yeah, - Yeah.

L-G-T-P-Q, people Under Attack.

We see trans rights really under attack.

We see people of color under attack.

And so, you know, I think it's important to celebrate what they did for us and to protect everyone who is, you know, to protect all, to try as hard as possible to protect the people who are not, who are not being protected in this moment.

And there are a lot, - How have you, well, what effect did it have on you that she would write about you so much?

Yes.

Right?

Yes.

I mean, and even at times minimized your experiences.

Like you had the experience of almost dying in childbirth.

- Yes.

That was not good.

Yes.

I didn't like that.

It, it's funny 'cause I had always, I had always been a little irritated about her writing about me and that I hated that she wrote, you know, I really did almost die in childbirth.

And she really made it sound like I had had pedicure gone wrong or something.

And it got me very mad that said, I was interviewed by a woman who had a mother who was a novelist, who had used her and her sister as characters in her book.

And I, she was so incredibly thought it was hilarious and was sort of not, she just didn't, she just thought it was funny and there was something so delightful about being able to just take it as a joke and not as this heavy thing that I thought, oh, I would like to be like that and not be bitter.

You know, part of it is this book, I'm writing this book at 46 years old.

So the question has to be you are like at least 25 years into your life at this point.

So who are you going to be?

Are you going to be someone who just continually complains about things that happened many decades ago?

Or are you going to be someone who can in fact live in the world as your own creation?

- Ha Wow.

Yes.

A lot to think about with Molly Jung Fast and we'll have more with her and with you listeners after the break.

Stay with us.

This is Forum.

I'm Mina Kim, you're listening to Forum.

I'm Mina Kim.

We're talking to Molly Jung fast this hour about her new memoir, how to Lose Your Mother.

It explores John fast relationship with her mom, writer Erica j.

Famous for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying.

And John Fast reflects on her relationship with a mom who sometimes seemed more in love with being famous than being a parent and what it's like, especially now as her mom has dementia, which has forced John fast to reconcile her feelings about her mother.

Listeners, is this something you relate to as well?

If you do, tell us by calling 8 6 6 7 3 3 6 7 8 6.

The sister writes, I am in the sandwich generation juggling older parents and kids.

It feels natural to parent a kid, but so much harder to parent, to parent, especially as they face memory issues.

I'm watching my parents fade away.

I feel lucky that I've been able to resolve issues with both of them.

And I credit a friend who told me 10 years ago, the runway ahead of your parents is short.

Don't waste time.

Thank you for this book, Molly.

Let me go to call caller Linda in Walnut Creek.

Hi Linda, you're on.

- Hey, thanks for taking my call.

I'm really excited that I get to ask this question directly.

As I've been sharing about your book with my friends and asking this very same question towards the end of the book, you recognized that your mom had done her best to try best in our parenting.

And I, I am, I just was curious about how you came to that and even after all the challenges and neglect that you got from your mom.

- But thank you so much.

What a good question and an important question.

And also I have to tell you what's so exciting about this book is like I go to book talks when I go to give a talk.

Everyone's like, you know, they come up to me afterwards and they're like, I have a this, I have a that or, and the worst is when I'm signing books, people come and be like, I'm an only child.

And I'll be like, oh, I know, because that's, I'm when they're like, I'm an only child.

I'm like, oh man, I get you.

But yes, so I'm really delighted.

I mean, it just makes me so happy that you asked me this question 'cause it's such a good question too.

Good.

So I would say I got sober and I had done therapy and I, but I also was like, it is this idea that you are responsible after a certain point.

Also, the other thing is that I did see my child, like there are people who had really, you know, this was like sort of, you know, it wasn't great, but it wasn't you.

I mean, there are people who have had really horrendous childhoods with abuse and, and, and you know, one of the things that we learn in AI is that, you know, if you hold onto resentment, ultimately it, it affects you more than them.

And I, I felt that there were, and even, you know what, even more than that was recently, I've been talking to my kids about the different ways in which they're like me or they're like their father.

And some of the best ways in which they're like me, I can see as directly from my mom.

Do you know what I mean?

Like the things that she was interested in, the way that she was very intellectually curious, the way that she was, you know, thought, you know, she, she learned Italian and wrote in Italian.

She read, you know, she just was a very interesting person who, who made me ambitious in ways that had I had had another mother I would not have been.

And so all of that doesn't come, it, it comes with the other stuff.

And so I'm grateful for the good stuff and, and I also know that myself as a parent, and I'm sure that you can relate to this if you have kids, it, it, this is not, none of this is perfect, right?

Like we will do, I, I mean I am sure my kids will be in therapy complaining about my being super controlling or telling them who they should date, you know, whatever.

And so then none of this is, none of us are - Perfect.

This is a question from Jane who writes, I was a parentified child.

My mother confided in me about all her personal problems.

It's made it extraordinarily difficult for me to want to help her now that she's aging.

Could your guest comment or offer some strategies?

I love this question too because this really also does get to something that you explore in the book and I think really was so relatable is when you have these types of unresolved issues.

I mean, you do reach a point as Linda was pointing out, where you feel a certain understanding and appreciation.

But in the process of having to be the caregiver and having to accept that your issues will not get resolved in the way that you imagined them to be, it does affect that, right?

It does affect the, your desire to be that person a - Hundred percent.

And I would say that with that question, that generation of baby boomers really did feel that they could use their kids as shrinks.

I don't think our generation does it as much, but they, for whatever reason, they didn't, you know, they didn't have car seats, right?

They didn't know smoking was dangerous.

I mean, I think we have to remember that a lot of the things they did, they didn't totally know, you know, they just didn't have the same kind of information that we do today.

One of the other things that helped me was knowing was saying like, I am mad at this person and being okay with that.

You know, it's okay to be mad at your parents for not being the parents you wanted them to be.

The question is what next?

And I think one of the things that has helped me is being, you know, that there's some things I was not happy about and, and that's okay.

- There's other listener writes, can Molly talk about writing this book now while her mother has dementia?

Was that freeing?

Yeah.

I know that there's criticism about writing the book now, but honestly writers write about people who have already passed or that doesn't seem to make people upset.

Is there something about her mom having dementia that triggers people?

You did struggle, Molly, with the ethics of writing this book when your mom had dementia.

Yeah.

Address the sister's question and, and also how you sort of came to reconcile all that.

- I mean, it's a really good question.

The truth is though, had she been totally with it, my mom would've been totally fine with this.

I mean, one of the many great things about Erica John was she knew that if you write about your kids are gonna write about you.

And she didn't.

And you know, it, the funny thing was when the New York Times columnist called her to ask her about the, about the book, you know, even though my mom has dementia, she gave an answer that she probably would've given where she totally fine.

You know, she would've given that same answer a decade ago or two decades ago, which would've been, you know, she is free to do what she wants.

So I wasn't so worried about the ethics of writing about her.

And in fact, I, I Taffy Ner who's written this ton movie, who's a great writer and a great friend of mine and also who is, who interviewed me during this book process for an event, we talked about this and like, this is Erica John's ethos, right?

To, to write about what really happened so that I wasn't so worried about, look, the ethics of I I would've, it it almost would've been better had she not had dementia.

And just, but then you would not have the thing to write about the other.

The other thing is that, you know, it's very tricky to write.

Like I don't write about my kids for that reason, but with my mom, I really felt it was, I I didn't, I was not worried about that.

I think she would've been delighted.

I mean, she cared so much more about legacy than she cared about what it looked like.

- Yeah.

The, there is though a line where you write now somehow the tables are turned.

And I'm doing to her exactly what she always did to me.

This is with regard to writing all about her.

Do I pretend that I am absolved or at least safe in my public judgements about her?

Because I know she will never be able to read I'm writing.

- And that's a real que and that's why I think people like this book is because I'm not saying that I figured it all out by any stretch of the imagination.

Right.

I'm just saying that here I am at 46 and I'm trying be a grownup in the world.

- Yeah.

Well let me bring Elizabeth in Pleasanton into the conversation.

Hi Elizabeth.

You're on.

- Hi.

I wanted to say thank you to Molly for, for having the courage to write your book.

I have a draft started of memoir of my mother.

She was a single mom most of my life.

I'm an only child.

She was a non-drinking alcoholic who in her later years at 80 was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

And after having her in assisted living for 10 years, we brought her home thinking she only had six months or so to live.

And my mother being my mother lived another seven years in my home, which meant I put off starting a - Law process.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh.

I laugh to keep from crying.

Keep going.

- Sorry.

Well, right, I'm serious.

I mean, you have, I, that's what I've said to so many friends, you have to laugh about these stories that I have about my mother because as cruel as it may sound a laugh about some of them, it's either that or I would probably would've killed myself at times.

And, and now after 40 years with the same person, I'm alone.

Having her in our home impacted my marriage.

It impacted my career.

I went back at 40 and did law school but then ended up taking care of her when I should have been starting a practice, which I think is why God doesn't give us poor knowledge.

Right?

'cause I probably wouldn't have kept her for seven years if I'd known it was gonna be that long.

But I just always felt like in some capacity, I had always taken care of my mother.

That she'd always relied on me psychologically and emotionally, even as an adult when I was a child.

And as a result, I chose not to have my own children.

- Mm.

Wow.

Elizabeth, really appreciate you sharing all of that.

And, and so glad to hear how much Molly's book is resonating with you.

Really resonated a lot with me.

Chris has an interesting question too with just regard with the regard to fame.

Chris writes, do you find yourself having to slow yourself down with that innate pressure to maintain your literary impact?

- The thing I spend a lot of time thinking about, because I am still very stuck on the 2024 election cycle is what break literally, I have to tell you, I'm still very stuck on it.

What breaks through?

So what breaks through and what breaks through to who.

So a great example is, yeah, we spent all this time hundred, you know, Harris had only a hundred days to run for president, spent all time writing about it, thinking about it, podcasting, about it, being on television about it.

And there were people on election day googling, did Joe Biden drop out?

So obviously there was a large percentage of these 300 million plus people in this country who were not involved in any of that.

And, and that has, so, so the answer is for myself, I don't, I I, you know, the thing that has keep kept me the most sane is that I try not to think about myself too much.

So I don't really try to, I try not to think about whether or not I'm famous or whether or not I am mad or, or whether or not people read my writing.

But I do spend a lot of time trying to think about like what are is what we're doing breaking through to people.

And that I think is a real - Question.

Yeah.

Well, let me remind listeners, we're talking to Molly John Fast about her memoir, how to Lose Your Mother, and you are listening to Forum.

I'm Mina Kim.

So one of the things I wanted to ask you about was the moment when, you know, it was really confirmed for you that she has dementia and you really saw it as sort of the moment when your relationship with your mom ends, you, you write, this is the end of my relationship with my mom.

The relationship I never got is over.

The window is closing or it's closed.

I will never get her attention now that the window is closed.

And I wanted to ask you, because there's so much that you are reflecting on in the book and wrestling with in the book that may, you may have resolved now or things that you continue to wrestle with even to this day.

But I wonder if you do feel like there is no way to have a relationship with your mom that may in some way have the elements of the one that you longed for, even though she, even with her having dementia.

And I ask this because I remember interviewing the writer and poet Ros Gaye who talked about even after his father died, his relationship with his father changed with new experiences that he had and new information that he was also absorbing about his dad.

- Oh, that's such a good question.

I think I've had a lot of experiences that have made me, have given me insight into what her life was like.

Even on this book tour, you know, I was on a show and they were playing a clip of my mom being interviewed by a man who is a famous interviewer in the seventies.

And you could see how she had been pushed to sort of make it, you know, he had sort of said you couldn't see the que they had clipped out the question, but clearly the question was something like, are you making women info mancs?

Right.

And she had to sort of defend herself.

I mean, you could just see that it had to be something just awful.

And you know, my mom had such, I have so much compassion for the world.

You know, we think that the media environment is hard now and in certain ways it is.

But the questions they asked her and the panels they put her on, and the ways in which she was treated like not, you know, Norman Mailer was winning Nobel Prizes and William F. Buckley was, you know, con sort of controlling the zeitgeist.

And my mom was sort of being treated like she was the happy hooker.

So I do think, I mean they had her paneled with the Mayflower madam.

I mean, it just, I do think that it was a, it was a very, I so I have a lot, I I really have a lot of compassion for her experiences in the world and especially in her career.

- And so do you think that has changed your dynamic with her?

Or do you Yeah, - I mean, yeah.

Or the dynamic in my head, right.

Because this is all, you know, these relationships are all actually about our relationships in our own heads with them and not so much with about them at this point.

- Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Bonnie writes, I read and loved Fear Flying when the book came out and was a big fan of your mother.

I met her in 1982 when you were a child.

I was on a fitness resort where she stayed for a week prickly is how I would describe her.

Looking back, I'm wondering what your mother was going through at that time.

Yeah.

Was she already struggling with alcohol and at the resort to dry out?

Was she going through a divorce?

Was she always prickly as a lifelong caregiver for my mother who became a paraplegic when I was just four years old?

Oh, I look forward to reading your book.

- I think she was in 19 to 82, both an alcoholic and getting divorced from my father.

So yes, I think that's correct.

And I also, I I also think, yeah, I mean I, I just think a decade of people making, I mean she had, she had a tough time.

I mean it, you know, you don't realize how much writers were sort of in the zeitgeist in a way they're not now.

Like, remember my mom?

That book sold 27 million copies.

Yeah.

Like if you think of the biggest, best sellers, now they sell a million, 2 million.

That's a huge number.

So I do think that she had, she really, it, it just was a completely different level of fame and I think it did absolutely affect her.

- Yeah.

Well, we only have a minute left and this great question just came in from Jennifer who writes, now that your mom has dementia, does she view you differently?

My mom was a great beauty and always critical of my appearance.

Two fat bad haircut, hated my red hair.

The last time I saw her, she was in Fullblown dementia and she seemed to recognize me and wax poetic about what a beauty I was and how she loved my red hair.

- Yeah, that is one of the great things about dementia.

And and I think that's a really great little anecdote.

I yes, she is.

My mom was always incredibly kind to me and was like a big champion of mine.

So she, she has just continued on that way.

But I do think that she has, you know, I called her the other day to say the book was on the New York Times bestseller list.

'cause I knew she would love that.

'cause she's very interested in her legacy.

She was at the time very interested in her legacy.

Yeah.

And I don't think she totally understood it.

And that made me sad.

But I was like, we're still gonna get the Erika JG movie made mom.

So this is my way of trying to make things right is to, is to keep the legacy going.

- Well, I joined the people who really appreciate you wrestling with your mom's relationship as she ages.

And thank you Molly Jung fast.

Thank you Grace One for producing this.

And thank you listeners, this is Forum.

I'm Mina Kim.