Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. The novel Fear of Flying turned 50 this year.

In case you don't know, it was written by Erica Zhang, and it was super controversial when it first came out,

because its main character was a woman who treated sex cavalierly. You know, she wanted it, she sought it out,

she had a bunch of it. To put it glibly,

she treated sex kind of like a stereotypical guy in 1973. The book was written in the middle

of the sexual revolution and the proliferation of the birth control pill, so it just captured

a certain group of women going through a significant transformation that we still feel today. But the thing about the book

is that it was pretty transparently autobiographical and it had an impact on Erica Zhang's life.

In a bit, we'll hear from her daughter, the writer and podcaster Molly Zhang Fast, talking about

what it was like growing up in the shadow of the book. But first, we dug up NPR's

interview with Erica Zhang from when the book was published, and she talked to reporter Stephen

Banker about how concerned she was about how her husband's family would react to the book.

That's after the break. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Since we're going back in time a bit, I just want to set the scene. It's 1973 and author

Erica Zhang is married to a psychiatrist. Now, like I said before, Fear of Flying is pretty

openly autobiographical and it involves having sex outside of your marriage.

And Erica Zhang starts off this interview with Stephen Banker talking about the very idea of marriage.

...