(This being an Erica Jong novel, it isn’t.) The surreal encounters that follow - an email exchange with a man who introduces himself by sending lewd photos, another who wants her to wear a black rubber suit, an unsatisfying hotel tryst with an old married flame - leave Vanessa reeling and worried that her sex life might be over. She seeks escape from her sexless marriage to a much older man with erectile dysfunction by searching for lovers online. The story centers on Vanessa Wonderman, a former actress terrified of aging and death.

“That’s not celebrated, sadly, and I would hope that a lot of older women who read this book realize that sex doesn’t disappear, it just changes forms.” “I’ve always wanted to write the books for women that didn’t yet exist, so I thought, I have to write about an older woman who is sexual, attractive and wants to reach out for life,” Ms. Jong’s new character, a grandmother in her 60s, is lusty and vivacious and searching for carnal satisfaction at a casual-sex site called. While “Fear of Flying” shocked readers with its frank depiction of the sexual appetite and independence of its protagonist, Isadora Wing, “Fear of Dying” takes on an another, more persistent taboo by depicting - in blunt, unvarnished detail - sex between older adults.

Now, decades later, she has exhumed and rebranded the phrase in her new novel, “ Fear of Dying,” which is being billed as the “spiritual” sequel to “Fear of Flying” and is being released on Tuesday.

The fear of flying erica jong