Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, first published in 1973, follows Isadora Wing, a writer who travels to Vienna with her psychiatrist husband and becomes entangled in an affair and a restless journey across Europe. Kath Kenny’s essay argues that the book has a “joyful abandon” that sets it apart from what she calls today’s “sad girl novels.” That is Kenny’s critical judgment, not a settled description of contemporary women’s writing. The sections below explain what the novel does, why her comparison works as far as it goes, and where its limits lie.
What the novel is about
Isadora Wing is a poet and novelist who accompanies her husband to a psychiatric conference in Vienna. The trip becomes a sequence of affairs, memories, and self-examination. The book blends comic set pieces with long digressions on marriage, sexual desire, and female ambition. Its structure is looser than a conventional plot: the present-day journey is interrupted by recollection, philosophical reflection, poetry, and comic lists. That looseness is part of the point. Isadora’s story is less a question of what happens next than of what she is allowed to want.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
The Essential Feminist Reader (Modern Library Classics) | $11.48 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
|
The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel | $12.58 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
|
Herland (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) | $4.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
|
To Kill a Mockingbird Collector's Edition: A Novel | $24.21 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
|
The Awakening (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) | $0.99 | Buy on Amazon |
Why Kenny hears “joyful abandon”
Kenny’s argument rests on tone as much as on subject matter. She reads the novel’s energy as the product of a period in which radical change seemed close, and she contrasts that with contemporary fiction shaped by a more pessimistic view of the future. The comparison is about mood and historical moment rather than a claim about literary quality.
The opening line sets the voice
Kenny quotes the novel’s first line: “There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I’d been treated by at least six of them.” She reads it as establishing the narrator’s wisecracking tone, a voice that treats its own neurosis as material for comedy. Much of the book’s pleasure comes from this combination of self-deprecation and nerve.
#1 Best Overall
Where Kenny places it among later fiction
Kenny connects Isadora’s mix of sex and political thought to elements in Sally Rooney’s novels, and she compares aspects of the voice to characters and narrative devices from Sex and the City and Girls. These are her interpretive comparisons, offered to orient readers. They are not evidence that any of those writers was influenced by Jong, and readers should treat them as one critic’s map rather than a genealogy.
The historical moment
Kenny places the novel within the rise of second-wave feminism and says it often reads like a feminist manifesto. That reading is consistent with how the book was received. The publisher’s 50th-anniversary announcement, issued by Penguin Random House, describes the novel as a cultural flashpoint about women’s desire. Executive editor Tracy Bernstein, identified by the publisher as Berkley Executive Editor, wrote: “The earthshaking event that was the publication of Fear of Flying can be difficult to imagine now. Male reviewers’ reactions at the time reveal their utter shock at confronting a woman in touch with her own desires. Fiction—for women and men—has never been the same.” Bernstein is an editor at the book’s publisher, so this is a retrospective claim by an interested party, not neutral scholarly consensus.
Rank #2
- Before The Testaments, there was The Handmaid’s Tale: an instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times).
What Jong says the book is about
In the reader’s guide published by Penguin Random House, Jong says Fear of Flying was never a literal autobiography, though it draws on autobiographical elements. Asked whether the book’s scandalous reputation bothered her, she replied: “I never thought it was a book about sex. I thought it was a book about freedom.” She describes the novel as a “manifesto of liberation,” and says that she can blush at her youthful recklessness. She also reflects that she came to understand how Isadora’s frankness about sexual feelings affected readers.
The guide includes a statement about present-day relevance: “We are still in the midst of an unfinished revolution.” Jong adds that it remains difficult to combine love and work and to find emotional freedom. Her point is not that conditions are unchanged, but that the conflicts over fulfillment and identity persist in altered social forms. These are Jong’s own retrospective remarks, reproduced by her publisher.
Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchWindows Errors? Fix Them Before They Spread
Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallEditions and sales figures
Two editions are relevant to readers choosing a copy. The listing details below come from Penguin Random House’s pages.
| Edition | Publication date | Pages | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Penguin Classics paperback | September 24, 2013 | 320 | 9780143107354 |
| 50th-anniversary trade paperback | Announced for December 5, 2023 | Not stated in the publisher announcement | Not stated in the publisher announcement |
Sales figures are harder to pin down. The author’s official site and the publisher give different totals, and the pages do not state comparable dates or methods. The author’s novel page reports more than 6.5 million copies in print in the U.S. and 12.5 million worldwide in 27 languages. The author biography reports over 37 million copies sold and translations into more than 45 languages. Penguin Random House reports more than 18 million copies in print worldwide on its product copy, and more than twelve million copies sold in its reader’s guide. All of these pages are undated, so none of these numbers should be read as a current sales figure.
Rank #4
Reading it with its dated language
Kenny notes that the book contains a chapter title and other phrasing that readers may find dated or offensive. She reports that Jong later acknowledged she would not use one quoted phrase if writing today. The honest way to read the novel is with that context in view: the frankness that gives the book its energy is tied to the assumptions of its era, and some of those assumptions have not aged well.
Is it still relevant?
The strongest part of Kenny’s case is that Fear of Flying is not a cautious book. Its humor, sexual candor, and willingness to let an unhappy wife be funny and reckless remain distinctive. Whether that makes it a corrective to a whole genre of contemporary fiction is a more contestable claim. Readers who come for the voice and the historical energy will find the comparison useful. Readers looking for a clean account of women’s writing today will need other sources, because the essay offers one critic’s reading rather than a survey.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →For a first reading, the Penguin Classics edition is the most clearly documented option, and the novel’s own voice does most of the persuading.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
