Molly Jong Fast: confessions of a bad daughter

The Shift with Sam Baker

Sam Baker Ltd

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 525 Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is the journalist Molly Jong Fast. The author of four books, Molly started writing about politics in 2016. She’s now a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a political analyst for MSNBC News and host of the Fast Politics Podcast. But she is also the daughter of the novelist Erica Jong, who in the 1970s wrote a novel that became synonymous with the sexual revolution. Fear of Flying, featuring Jong’s alter ego Isadora Wing, sold 20 million copies and coined the phrase the zipless fuck. Molly was born into a world of fame and celebrity. As she puts it she grew up with her mother everywhere - on television, the answer to a question in games shows, in the newspaper. But rarely at home. Now Molly has written How To Lose Your Mother, a daughter’s memoir about middle age and losing your mother to dementia when actually you never had her. It’s funny candid, gossipy, entertaining a story of love, frustration and, occasionally, despair. Molly joined me from New York to talk about how she survived when everyone started dying around her, ageing without a guidebook, how algorithms shape misogyny, why you can never escape being a nepo baby, being a bad daughter, why it’s ok to lie to your kids and only learning she could be right about things in her 40s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including How to lose your mother by Molly Jong Fast as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a paid message from GoFundMe.
0:02.9	My name is Ashley Kane.
0:04.6	I'm the daddy of a little girl in heaven and a father to two boys on earth.
0:09.9	I've got an incredible relationship with GoFundMe, both personally and via our daughter's foundation, the Azalea Foundation.
0:17.4	GoFundMe has allowed me, the foundation, and thousands of people out there to give hope to others in need.
0:25.5	You'd actually be surprised how many people out there are willing to show love and support you in your time of need.
0:33.3	My advice for anyone that needs to stop a GoFundMe would be do it.
0:38.6	You don't need to feel shame.
0:40.1	You don't need to feel guilt.
0:41.3	You don't need to feel embarrassment.
0:43.1	If you need GoFundMe, use GoFundMe.
0:46.8	Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com.
0:50.7	That's gofundme.com.
0:56.7	This message reflects one. That's go fund me.com. G-O-F-U-N-D-M-E.com.
0:59.8	This message reflects one person's experience.
1:10.9	Hello and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds-bar truth about being a woman post-40,
1:15.4	created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker.
1:19.6	My guest today is the journalist Molly Jong Fast.
1:24.5	The author of four books, Molly started writing about politics in 2016,
1:29.4	and she's now a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a political analyst for MSNBC News, and host of the Fast Politics podcast. But she's also the daughter of the novelist
1:37.3	Erica Jong, who in the 1970s wrote a novel that became synonymous with the sexual revolution,
1:46.6	Fear of Flying. Featuring Zhang's alter ego is Adora Wing sold 20 million copies and coined the phrase the Ziplas fuck.
	...

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