In her three historical novelsFanny, Shylock's. Fear of Flying is also credited with providing some not-so-endearing terms for the American lexicon, such as the phrase 'zipless f_', of which Jong explains is, 'Zipless because when you came together zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff.' If that's what women want from sex, they're getting it in this novel, which to date has sold more than 20 million copies. In her groundbreaking first novel, Fear of Flying (which has sold twenty-six million copies in more than forty languages), she introduced Isadora Wing, who also plays a central part in three subsequent novelsHow to Save Your Own Life, Parachutes and Kisses, and Any Woman's Blues. A literary sensation when it was first published, Fear of Flying established Erica Jong as one of her generation’s foremost voices on sex and feminism. The novel quickly became a national sensation, with the public wondering if it was partially autobiographical (Jong maintains it wasn't, but admits that it does include some autobiographical elements).

While on a trip with her second husband, Wing takes an opportunity to have a torrid affair with another man, indulging in sexual fantasies that she felt uncomfortable expressing to her spouse.

The novel is narrated by a fictional woman named Isadora Zelda White Stollerman Wing, a 29-year-old poet. Originally published in 1973 by Holt, Reinhardt and Winston, Fear of Flying, the internationally bestselling story of Isadora Wing by Erica Jong, coined a new phrase for a sex act and launched a new way of thinking about gender, sexuality, and liberty in our society. About 40 of Americans feel some fear at the thought of flying, and between 2.5 and 6.5 of people in the U.S.

Published in 1973, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying resonated with women who felt trapped in sexually unsatisifying marriages. 'At the time I wrote Fear of Flying,' recalls Erica Jong, 'there was not a book that said women are romantic, women are intellectual.

Fear of flying novel