My mother was a famous feminist writer known for her candour and wit. But she was also a fantasist who couldn’t be bothered to spend time raising me

When Fear of Flying, her autobiographical novel about women’s sexual desires, came out in 1973, Erica Jong was suddenly big news. But growing up as her only child, I had a very different experience

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n August 1978, I was born in a hospital in Stamford, Connecticut. I came out with red hair. This was proof to my mother that I was special. The fantasy of my specialness continued my entire life. I was special even though I was dyslexic. I was special even though I got kicked out of college. I was special even though I was a drug addict. I was special despite my fatness. I was special despite all the evidence to the contrary. I was special because I was a piece of her.

I read an interview with my mother in which the interviewer described me as a “stout” toddler. “Stout” means “kind of fat”. I never thought of a toddler as being able to be fat, but there it was.

This is from that interview in the Washington Post: “Their daughter, Molly Miranda Jong-Fast, is two years old and red-headed. She was born between pages 284 and 285 of Fanny. Having the baby, Jong says, ‘transformed’ her. ‘In my 20s and early 30s I didn’t think I wanted children,’ she says. ‘But by the time I was 34 or 35, I realised that if I didn’t have a baby soon, it was going to be a matter of picking up every stray dog in Connecticut.’”