Erica Jong's first novel, Fear of Flying, exploded onto the literary scene in 1973 compelling attention by the force of its shocking language and explicit images.

Women had not written serious fiction in such a manner before the publication of that novel. Fear of Flying gave an articulate voice to female desire and placed it in an intelligent character with whom female readers could identify. In many ways, that book prepared the way for Inventing Memory (also published as Of Blessed Memory), the story of four generations of Jewish mothers and daughters who struggle to assert themselves artistically and sexually amid the radically changing social and historical contexts of the twentieth century. Each of the four key characters strives for happiness against the terms dictated by her individual circumstances.

At the turn of the century, young Sarah (Sophia) Solomon must flee the anti-Semitism in her native Russia...