Sappho's Leap (43 page)

A page from the first completed manuscript of
Fear of Flying
. Jong worked on the novel throughout her twenties, going through many drafts before she arrived at the framing device of a trip through Europe, and the story of Isadora's past told through flashbacks.

The publicity photo used for
Fear of Flying
. The photograph defined Jong to millions of readers worldwide, leading many to think of her as carefree when, in reality, she was a workaholic—always writing the next book!

Jong in the mid 1970s, photographed by science-fiction author and future husband Jonathan Fast, who had a matching hat. Fast took the photograph around the time the two fell madly in love.

Jong at her house in Connecticut in August 1978, just a few days before giving birth to her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast. Jong was in her thirties at the time, and ready to have a baby. She loved the way she looked in her Indian schmatta and never took it off. She remembers her pregnancy with Molly as a very happy time.

Jong and her daughter, Molly, in 1982, smiling with Emily Doggenson, Jong's second Bichon Frisé. This picture was used as a holiday card, and then in magazines. Jong says she wondered if it was so beloved because mother, daughter, and dog all shared the same hair.

A promotional photograph of Jong taken in her writing studio. When really writing, she worked in solitude and pajamas—like most authors, she says.

Jong around 1988, looking at artwork by Joseph Smith created for her illustrated book
Witches
. Jong explored the work of many artists, but in the end, she selected Smith's work because she found his illustrations to be both spooky and sexy at the same time.

Jong at the Hôtel de Crillion, photographed for a newspaper feature. Jong liked this photograph so much that she used it in her poetry book
Becoming Light
.

Jong in Mishkenot Sha'ananim, Israel, for a literature festival. Jong has also taught at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva, Israel.

Jong and Ken Burrows in their book-lined apartment. They collect rare first editions of Joyce, Eliot, Dickens, Beckett, Miller, Updike, Nabokov, and Radclyffe Hall.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from “In Praise of Dreams” in
View with a Grain of Sand,
© 1993 by Wislawa Szymborska, English translation by Stranislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh © 1995 by Harcourt, Inc. reprinted by permission of publisher.

Copyright © 2003 by Erica Jong

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4804-3888-0

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com