How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir

An honest, heartbreaking and brutally funny memoir about losing a mother you never really had - and a comfort to anyone who loves someone who drives them crazy.

'I was just bowled over by this book' - Nigella Lawson

'A gripping memoir about mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, loss and healing . . . exquisitely relatable' - Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

'Conveys the mess, terror, loneliness and glory of familial love, in all its riveting complexity' - Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History ______

Molly Jong-Fast is the daughter of acclaimed writer Erica Jong. How to Lose Your Mother is Molly’s delicious and despairing memoir about that intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and how that can really mess you up. But with her mother’s heartbreaking descent into dementia, and Molly’s realization that she is going to lose this remarkable woman, it is also a story of love, loss, confusion and deep grief.

Honest, moving and brutally funny, How to Lose Your Mother takes us behind the scenes of a fascinating and sometimes tumultuous family dynamic, revels in the gossipy details of Erica’s famous friends and enemies, and leaves us with a better understanding of our own most precious relationships.

© 2025 Picador (Audiobook): 9781035029372

Release date

Audiobook: June 26, 2025