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Molly Jong-Fast who is now officially thirtysomething. The party was hosted by her mother, Erica Jong, and her stepfather, Ken Burrows, at their Upper East Side apartment. There were about thirty guests, including Molly’s in-laws, her father, Jon Fast, and her stepmother, Barbara. The evening was cozy and en famille. At dinner, the birthday girl thanked everyone for being present and told us quite seriously how much she loved her parents, her stepparents, her in-laws, and her husband, Matt Greenfield. Knowing Molly as I do, there is no question that these were her honest feelings. They were 34 QUEST
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also the feelings in the room. I was seated next to the Birthday Girl. On my left, Susan Cheever, the author who is also a neighbor of mine, was rapt in conversation with an Englishman with salt-andpepper grey hair. So rapt were they, that we never spoke nor did I meet her dinner partner. Frankly, I didn’t want to interrupt. Writers talking. After dinner I offered Susan a ride home. “Who were you so deep in conversation with?” I asked once we were in the taxi. “Ken Follett,” she replied. “You don’t know Ken?” No. “What were you talking about?” I continued my
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curiosity-killed-the-cat. “Middlemarch,” she answered. Coincidentally, Erica and I had talked briefly about Middlemarch at dinner also. And earlier in the week, another friend of mine, Joan Kingsley, told me she was currently reading Middlemarch and was loving it. She told me she was reading it because her eldest daughter, Kate, (a.k.a. the author Katherine Kingsley) said it was her favorite book. “What were you talking about, about Middlemarch?” I asked Cheever. I was fascinated by the idea of two writers at a New York dinner party talking about George Eliot.
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“About the relationship between men and women as defined by George Eliot.” Jong and Burrows always have writers at their parties, and there are always some immersed in conversation about books. I don’t do this; I’m neither well-read enough (or smart enough) to hold my own under such circumstances. Both Cheever and Follett, for example, seem to have read everything, twice, providing those very personal moments for me when I feel like a dumbbell. The following day I was looking at Forbes.com and followed the story about “the richest writers,” an exponent
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