Fear of Flying

Erica Jong's first novel was published in 1973, when she was 30. It sold millions of copies and was considered revolutionary, ground-breaking, and shocking. Now, it's just the often funny adventures of freethinking, freewheeling, sexually obsessed Isadora Wing. Hope Davis gives her just the right prickly edginess as Isadora philosophizes and fantasizes her way through husbands, lovers, and one meaningless-if-pleasurable erotic encounter after another. Isadora wallows in the depths of the male/female sexual relationship, and while she gets tiresome, often tasteless, Hope Davis never does. Her reading is fresh, inventive, and sincere. Her Isadora is wry, funny, abrasive, crude, and smart. A socially significant book and a terrific performance by Davis make this worth a listen. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine