No Fear: Five questions with Erica Jong, who will read in Mystic on Friday

May 16, 2016 12:00 am • Last Updated: May 17, 2016 3:27 pm

By Betty J. Cotter, Special to The Day

Erica Jong will read selections from her poetry collections at the Arts Café Mystic on Friday. (Mary Ann Halpin)

Erica Jong’s 1973 novel, “Fear of Flying,” created a sensation and coined a vulgar expression about a zipper — or rather, the lack of one. But her career also has encompassed sensual poetry, revealing memoir and bawdy historical novels.

Poetry will be the focus of Jong’s reading at the Arts Café Mystic on Friday evening. Her collections range from “Fruits and Vegetables,” her 1971 debut, to “Love Comes First,” from 2009. Her most recent book, last year’s “Fear of Dying,” acts as a coda of sorts to her first novel.

Doors open at 7 p.m. Friday for the 7:30 show, but early arrival is encouraged, as the show is expected to sell out. Tickets must be purchased at the door.

Booking Jong is a coup for the Arts Café, which has been bringing writers and musicians to the area for 22 years. Christie Max Williams, the artistic director of the Café, met a friend of the author’s at a dinner party in New York City in January. Through that connection, Williams talked on the phone with Jong a few weeks later.

Jong, whom Williams called “gracious, warm and charming,” was familiar with the Café and Mystic, having sailed there with her husband. She told Williams she thinks of herself as a poet first and foremost.

Jong also was gracious in responding to our questions via email.

Q. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the impact of “Fear of Flying,” your 1973 novel. Kate Millett gave women literary criticism, Gloria Steinem a magazine and political clout, Betty Friedan an argument. But you gave us a character, so real in all her ambivalence, desire and intelligence. Did you have any inkling when you were writing the book just how far-reaching its influence would be?

A: I was a poet. I had absolutely no idea about the future. I just knew that I wanted to write an honest and funny book about women.

Q: In “Fear of Dying,” the narrator, Vanessa Wonderman, laments everything the Second Wave feminists “got wrong” — the exclusion of men, of sex, of dancing. What do you wish today’s young women understood about how to live?

A: We must make men feminists instead of throwing them out. We must not make the mistake of confusing man-bashing with women promotion. We must realize that society is in a state of change and all thinking people must support this change. Anger and resentment are the province of Donald Trump supporters. The future is not theirs. But if we go on loving, dancing and insisting on our rights to shared responsibilities, equal pay, equal influence in the world, intelligent men already join us and more and more will do so. We should be building a movement, not blaming others.

Q: If you were writing a novel and Hillary Clinton were a character, how would she overcome her obstacles?

A: She would choose Elizabeth Warren as her running mate. She would be lighter and funnier about her obstacles. She would let her supporters know that all women who try to change the world have been trashed, bashed and blasted. They have been declared dishonest. They have been jailed. The pattern of discrediting Hillary Clinton is no different than the way Eleanor Roosevelt was discredited, Victoria Woodhull was discredited, Harriet Tubman was discredited, Margaret Sanger was discredited. Even the first Queen Elizabeth was discredited for her refusal to marry. Sexism still blocks talented women. The more they want to change the world, the more it blocks them.

Q: Some writers claim they have no time to read. Is that true of you? Do you have any favorite contemporary poets, novelists, memoirists?

A: I hate to name favorites because other people think they are not favorites. But I try to read as widely as I can. Women writers, men writers, black writers, white writers, poets, novelists and memoirists.

I recognize we are living in a time where the boundaries of literature are being expanded, and I want to be part of my time.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I am writing a book about overcoming writers block. I have begun a novel about an 18th-century artist and her 21st-century descendant. One of the most amazing things I never wanted to acknowledge is the terrible discrimination against women artists, writers and musicians. We should be way past that. I have always wanted to write the books about women that were not yet on the shelf and I am still doing that.