When Molly Jong Fast’s How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir (Viking 2025), I resolved to avoid it. I mean, Erica Jong, author of my liberation, facilitator of my most humorous self-deprecation. I didn’t want to know the sad, selfish underbelly of my hero. Then, one day, I listened to an interview with the author, and I thought, “Well, if I can listen to this book in her voice, maybe I’ll learn something.” I did. I found the audio book narrated by the Jong-Fast herself, and, wow, am I glad I did.
Once I relented, I found myself feeling enormously grateful to Molly Jong-Fast for sharing her mother’s missteps, blunders, neglect, and abuse. It made me more aware of my own mistakes and offered me a sense of what my own children might have felt at times in their childhood.
Erica Jong was nothing like me. She was glamorous, well-connected, and a star with a severe drinking problem. I was and had nothing of the kind. But I am a writer, and I know now that too often in my children’s lifetime I felt I had relinquished my Self on their behalf, and I am sure I unwittingly hurt them in some of the ways this mother hurt this daughter. Erica Jong’s dementia and her singular life view prevent her from understanding what happened to her daughter, but with any luck, I still have some time. To make some repairs. Or at least to let my kids know I care. I am sorry.
At base, How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir, is an everywoman story. When I wrote my memoir, I struggled with how to depict my mother, who suffered multiple traumas too few years before I was born to have sorted them out; she grew to be the mother everyone wished were theirs, but there was always a regret between us for what we could not have. I realized, as I wrote and forgave us both, that the complexities of the mother/daughter conundrum are much the same for even the happiest of pairs. Each mother, each daughter is a reflection of the other. As my mother’s face becomes more clearly the one I see in the mirror every day, I understand more deeply how normal we actually were.
I am grateful to Molly Jong-Fast for the mirror she held unto my nature in much the same way I remain grateful to Erica Jong for Isadora Zelda White Stollerman Wing . . . and later for Serenissima and the sensual dive into Jessica Shylock’s world. . . . as well as so many other pages of entertainment and enlightenment.
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir is a lovely — if oftentimes harrowing — read, a book any daughter is liable find herself and her mother in. A terrific experience.
Returning to Saranac Lake, the town where I spent my latter childhood years, used to be all about my mother and my brother David. Both were much loved for good reasons; each had a particularly large presence among the locals and made a difference to many. In the old days, I felt suffocated and extincted by the size of the welcome I always got for them. Mom’s friends and David’s admirers were legion, and I could not walk down the street without being greeted with, “Hey, I knew your brother,” or “Carla, you’re Charlotte’s daughter. She was an amazing woman.”
Heck, I didn’t even have to be in our hometown. Once, my then 20-something-year-old son and I drove through a blinding blizzard to spend a weekend in Lake Placid, the tourist mecca nine miles and a huge cultural ethos away from Saranac Lake. We checked into the Hilton Hotel and went to the bar to unwind before sleeping. Within minutes of being seated, three people at the bar realized I was a Swett and sat themselves next to me to regale me with stories of David when he was the bouncer at a bar over on the lake. Soon, another three people came over to tell me what a great teacher mom was the year she taught bio at LPHS.
It was something of a relief to be anonymous, to duck into their legacy. I was content to linger in the long shadows Mom and David had cast years before.
Over the years, I remained in touch with only one person, the grown-up boy I counted as my best friend from 6th grade on, the boy with whom few in our class knew I had a relationship. He had gone to college, been engaged, been sent to Viet Nam, and moved down south, but we stayed connected though I had not seen him since he visited me in New York on his way to Viet Nam in 1969. I would have seen him if he had been in town when I was there, but he was not.
I loved taking my family to visit Saranac Lake, and we went as often as we could. We camped at White Pine Camp before it was renovated. We hiked up to Copperas Pond. We canoed or boated out onto the lakes. But since my one true pal was not there, I felt no compulsion to call anyone else. I didn’t expect that anyone would remember or care. David and Mom were the ones that counted. I did not.
Everything changed for me when the 35th Reunion of the Class of 1965 rolled around.
In 2000, on the verge of leaving my husband and having buried my mother just a few months before, I got the notice that a reunion was in the works. I wasn’t sure how I felt about facing my classmates, but I was sure I needed to find a way to feel grounded. I had just begun to flex my creativity and was experimenting with a new career; the idea of being among the people who knew me before I left my chrysalis was comfortingly attractive.
The opening event was a meet-‘n’-greet at the Belvedere Restaurant, a hometown tavern, where many of my classmates had learned to drink as teenagers but to which I had never been. I parked my car outside the restaurant, and before I got halfway out of my car, a familiar form appeared at the top of the stairs.
“SWETT!!!” He exclaimed, addressing me, as people had when we were young, by my embarrassing last name. “You’re here!!!”
The surprise greeter was John, the boy who sat behind me in 5th grade. The one who dunked my braids in an inkwell then cut off the ends, who was grateful I didn’t complain to the teacher but simply laughed. He was the boy who told me to shut up when I argued with a teacher about the legitimacy of a request we were expected to honor. He was never someone I thought of as having any real interest in me, but he had always been there. And now there he was smothering me in hugs. He led me in.
Inside, I was greeted by people, many of whose faces I barely recognized. My oldest, best friend was there, and I buried myself in his affection but felt no reason to hide for long. There were so many cherished memories assembled. Gail, who lived down the hill from me when we first arrived in town that winter of 1957. Her dog Mike nearly scared me to death. Later, when we both moved across town, Gail was once again down the hill from me, always my neighbor and a kindred spirit. Marsha, whose 4th grade birthday party invitation eased my transition from Massachusetts outsider to Saranac Lake resident. Nancy, my high school bestie, and Maryanne, with who made me laugh as we walked together down the hill from school in the springtime. I rediscovered Karen, whose baby brother was born within weeks of mine. And shy Art, who had seemed so disinterested in anything academic but had evolved into a High School History teacher. Then there was Penny, whose friendship was a constant aspiration though she seemed to disdain me, enveloping me in a hug.
Within minutes of arriving, my classmates reminded me that though high school was not my finest hour, it was a time that deserved to be remembered. The campaign for senior council president, the regional chorus festivals, jazz band, speech contest, the town centennial pageant. . . .
People still effused about David or Mom. But I realized I, too, belonged. My fellow townspeople were, along with David and Mom and all the Swetts, the main characters in the play that was my life in this town. I felt embraced and accepted, and I understood for the first time that the play wasn’t over yet!
I struck up correspondences, albeit spare, and looked forward with great anticipation to whatever came next.
At the fiftieth reunion, naturally, some of the best people were not there. Old age, illness, family events, death. Nancy was no longer with us, and John was clearly ill. But we had a blast. Gail and I hosted the culminating ceremony together, and we formalized our belief that we were sisters of the most bonded sort, members of a family of disparate siblings, who’d grown up in a community founded on the idea that a town exists to care for one another.
The people who fostered the growth of Saranac Lake in the late 19th C arrived there in order to give or find relief from TB; the tradition defined the town and trickled into everyone’s consciousness. Saranac Lake became a refuge for veterans of WWII and Korea, boys who needed a quiet, caring place to raise their families and set the world aright. Refugees from places like the Swiss Alps who needed to be in the familiar protection of the granite mountain walls that surrounded us. We were raised by survivors who nurtured one another’s survival, and we members of the Class of ‘65 bonded to one another as our parents did to our town.
Returning last month for our 60th Reunion, I had feared that David’s recent death would make it painful to hear his virtues extolled. I was wrong. This great extended family we’d both been part of shared memories that made mine more vibrant. I missed him more and at the same time a bit less because he was there with us in more hearts than just my own.
There were far fewer of us this year to revel in the joy of sharing one more party. So we made a solemn promise to one another: we won’t let ten years pass before we do it again. Ours is a special joy we must nurture fervently.
Saranac Lake, NY, began as an outpost for hunters but gained fame and population as a medical center for Tuberculosis sufferers.
Walking in the almost cool, late August air today, I felt a premonition of Fall. Crisp air, cornflower sky. Finally. . . October’s on its way.
October has always been a special month. My birthday, my youngest child’s birthday, the year’s first cold snap, darkening afternoons. This time, however, the October snippet hit me with an image of Marilyn Joan Alkus Bonomi.
Mari and I met on an October Saturday in 1987 at my youngest’s birthday party, a party I hoped would help us get acquainted with our new neighbors. We had just moved from Arizona to Connecticut, and none of us had been prepared for the culture shock we would encounter. Fitting in was challenging, and a party seemed like an opportunity to make some friends, to show our new cohorts that while we might not have mastered the eastern way of dressing and speaking, we were just plain folks like everyone else. Personally, too, I hoped that an adult or two would come to the party and stay, be a welcoming presence . . . or at least a fellow parent with familiar sensibilities.
Mari was the one. She swept in, deposited her daughter in the midst of the other children, then sat down next to me and opened a conversation that drew me in, made me feel instantly connected. It was a stream of consciousness into which we were able to immerse ourselves every time we were together for the next nearly forty years of our enduring friendship.
We had lots in common. Her daughter and my youngest were the same age and had already begun to bond, which meant that Mari and I were destined to see one another often. We were both English teachers with a deep connection to the theater; she was well established in Connecticut, and I was looking for a job. We shared a nearly obsessive love of rhetoric and a penchant for lost souls. Though humanist Jews, we had both chosen husbands who were Jesuit-trained Catholic schoolboys.
Over the course of that first year, her daughter and mine became besties and formed a union that included my older daughter; Mari and I were fused.
Because of Mari, I quickly found a job. At the birthday party, she had been delighted to learn that I planned to substitute teach while I sought permanent employment. “That is wonderful news,” she said. “I teach at Amity, in Woodbridge, one of the best schools in the country. Can you tell I’m proud? Anyway, we never have enough good subs. I’ll put your name in.”
She did. I spent much of that year subbing at Amity and loving it.
One day, when we were lucky enough to have lunch together, she pointed to a lanky man leaning in among a group of students, listening intently and chatting with them. “See that guy?” She asked. “That’s Stu Elliot. He’s one of our Assistant Principals. A good man. A great administrator. See how he interacts with the kids? He is special, which just means we won’t have him for long. He’ll have his own school any day now. Which is why I want you to meet him. He will want to hire teachers of his own choice, and you would be a perfect addition to any team he takes on.”
We spent ten minutes talking to Stu, and I agreed. He was remarkable. A year later, he became my principal at the high school next door to my house. I could not have been more fortunate, and my gratitude to Mari never diminished.
Our friendship ran deep. Her child was at my house almost as often as mine was at hers. We celebrated holidays together and commiserated when we were both unhappy. Our contact lapsed a bit as each of us traversed the hard road of divorce and redefinition, but we found one another again in time to have a few great years as senior citizen sisters. Though never enough time to fully share our appreciation for years of a deeper-than-blood kinship.
Since 1987, my life has been fuller in dozens of ways because of Marilyn Joan Alkus Bonomi. Though she will live on in her daughter’s eyes, in her grandson’s laugh, in my heart, in my soul, in my very vivid memory, I shall miss her voice, her presence, the soft touch of her abiding love.
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