For those that said "Fear of Flying" was taboo or saturated with sex didn't end up reading "How to save your own life" once that was published.

"How to save..." is inundated with flight, sex, self-pity, guilt, bemoaning one's husband, sex, whining, sex, guilty & angry sex, more whining, some traveling, girl-on-girl sex to REALLY spite the selfish & also adulterous husband, traveling, sex AND love, refusal of an orgy for a night alone with your lover (emphasis on the love), separation, participation in an orgy at the thought of having lost your lover (more emphasis on the love), fleeing the husband, and ends with sex. The beloved character of Isadora Wing is now famous, still in a loveless, debilitating marriage (with decent if not really good sex) with her husband Bennett whom she returned to at the end of "Flying". Isadora finds out that Bennett had a long term affair before she ever began her sexual exploitations with other men and hates him throughout the whole novel for it. She repeats on at least three occasions how she's gotten there, how much she regrets staying with him and feels such a fool for thinking herself the sole adulterer in their marriage to find that her zipless fucks couldn't compare to the emotion her husband shared with another woman and refused to provide to her. While the female mind does go on such tangents and tends to replay scenes and thoughts over and over and over again in a novel once or twice is enough. And our "heroine" repeating the same diatribe of being confused for her overtly sexual character Candida yet finding the fame most writers want, being surrounded by supportive people, having artistic cliques both rich and poor, always having someone to screw (two Jeffrey's; a cold-hearted latching lesbian student, Rosanna; to name a few) leads you to wonder "Why the hell doesn't she just up and leave?" Yes, the fear of loneliness can be daunting but reading this book from 1977 in 2009 just makes the character seem overly whiny.

In the Afterword Jong admits that some of Isadora is based on herself (no duh) and that she looks upon the character now wanting to save her from herself and all her bad choices (endless screwing perhaps, whining and staying in a stifling marriage just because she's allowed to write per se?) Who knows?

I do like the Isadora character and really related to her in "Fear of Flying" and while the book is interesting and still in her funny, relatable tone I found that her living the life of the rich & famous, having all the luxury to write and teach and screw made her less on par with me but someone I'm looking up at and thinking "How does she have it so bad?"

Isadora finally finds the love she's been searching for and of course through a detailed sex scene finally connects with her younger lover as they build a life together. I would've left it at that as Jong wrote that in this novel Isadora and Josh are in love forever, rather than adding on another book in the chaotic life of Isadora Wing (mind you they tag which books are "Isadora Wing novels" on each reprinted cover) where she goes through motherhood and a harsh divorce. Sometimes iconic characters should just be left in that suspended state of happiness, whether or not it does go with the narrative of real life. Lord knows all the sex Isadora was having didn't ring true that much for me, though self-destructiveness does. Plus, it WAS the 1970s.

“The words carry their own momentum. A confession in motion tends to stay in motion. Newton's first law of jealousy.”

"So many marriages, so many deaths. People getting up in the morning and going to work, coming home at night, fucking, feeling dead. No wonder they left, ran off with their secretaries, smoked dope at forty-five, discovered sex as if they were Adam and Eve in the garden, and paid and paid and paid for it. Lawyers' bills, alimony, houses sold for half what you paid for them, children going to therapists, looking up at you with wounded eyes, furniture carted away, family heirlooms kissed good-bye, wounded husbands, wounded wives—it was all worth it if it made you feel alive again."

"Now, there are times when the very air is sexual, when it's dusk and the moon is hanging low over the rooftops, and the temperature in your blood is the same as the air and you look at a man—any halfway decent-looking man—and you know you could go right to bed with no questions asked at all. This was not that sort of night."

"That's worst of all. A doctor. Security. Bloomingdale's, a co-op, so what? Does it make you feel secure? Obviously not. What's wrong with taking risks? Being miserable in your marriage for another year and another year and another year is a big risk too—only you don't see the risk. The risk is your life. Wasting it, I mean. It's a pretty big risk."

"'Do you suppose,' she said, her voice horse from screaming, weak with love, 'that many lovers felt this and then died anyway?'"

I picked this book up reluctantly. The Jong book I really wanted to read was "Fear of Flying," the source of the "zipless fuck" expression. This one wasn't a disappointment, though. It was the kind of book that's light enough to keep you reading, but deep enough to keep you thinking. I'm not quite sure how I feel about what seemed to be the theme of the book, that no matter how independent a woman you are, you may still need to rely on a man. But in the epilogue, the main character "pees" during sex and gets embarrassed over it; I had to remind myself that the book was written in the '70s and a lot of things weren't quite like they are now.

Unexpectedly good

decent enough. i do love erica jong, the pioneer. how could you not respect a woman who wrote so honestly about love and sex and loss?

Okay, if you know me, you may know that the first book in this series, "Fear of Flying," is one of my three favorite books of all time. "How to Save Your Own Life" is not as brilliant as its predecessor, but it is still well worth reading. My love for Isadora would not let me stop without following through with the whole of her life in print (and I plan to read the later books, as well). Every time I started to get bored or discontent with this book, there would come a sudden moment of briliance to remind me of why I loved the first book so much. The final chapters are well worth the wait, and muchly bring us back around to the Isadora I once knew. The poetry included at the end is brilliant and striking and insightful. If possible, I highly recommend finding the 30th anniversary edition with the afterward by Ms. Jong. The final words of her essay will break your heart in the most beautiful way.

Oh, Erica...you saved mine with this book. Not really, but this book stuck with me and sticks with me and helped me leave my first husband in 2004. It is okay to leave a cold husband for a hot man at least once.

Da je ova knjiga izdana u današnje vrijeme vjerojatno bi se prodavala za 29,90 kn na Chick Lit polici. Erika i ja imamo posebnu vezu iz mojih školskih dana, ali pomalo je smiješno čitati njene knjige u ovom vremenu znajući da su to knjige koje su napravile neke pomake u feminizmu, ženskom pisanju o sexu u svoje vrijeme, a sad je to kao 'limunada'. :D Kako se vremena mijenjaju. ;)

I love Erica Jong's frank style and it comes across as honest from her heart, not just there for shock value. Isadora's character is mainly working up the nerve to leave her husband, and you can't help but cheer her on. Her reaction to her husband's hidden adultry is priceless after all her escapades in Fear of Flying. I also love her reflections on money and fame. They are witty and to the point without the whine so many modern day celebrities have when they talk about the pressures of success. My copy includes her and others love poems at the end and they were great.

I don't really remember what I thought about this book. I think I liked it, but, I don't really remember much about it. The main thing I remember is that it felt confessional, like, very thinly veiled fiction. Also I think I remember thinking (nice sentence!) that something about the power of it has been lost when you read it in the 00s, that the sense of female empowerment or the more scandalous parts would have seemed much moreso at the time it was published.

I found this book in my parent's basement when I was just starting high school. I read it my freshman year and it had such a profound effect on me. I never even knew this was a sequel to another book until I ran across Fear of Flying in a Goodwill store while I was on vacation.

I still come back to this book despite it's missing spine and worn pages. Every time my life gets difficult I settle down to read this because I know it will make me feel better. Isadora Wing was such an inspiration to me in my early teens. I wanted to be like her, well, at least in the sense of being a writer. She showed the good and the bad of being a writer to me and to this day I am still pursuing that dream.

This is by far my favorite book of all time because of what it means to me. Isadora was blunt but scared. She was strong but self-destructive. I related to her even as a teenager because I battled depression and anxiety and I still do today, but she made me feel like it was okay to battle those things just as long as I remembered her list of things to help save your own life. She made me feel like being a female author would be worth the long journey just as long as I remembered not to allow the critics to beat me into submission.

Isadora makes a lot of poor choices when it comes to men but you realize it's for her own good. We wouldn't learn everything if we could predict the future, we especially wouldn't learn anything about love if we didn't get our heart broken.