Erica Jong's mother, Eda Mirsky Mann, dead at 100

The Associated Press, Thursday, October 11, 2012, 3:44pm (PDT)

NEW YORK (AP) — Eda Mirsky Mann, a painter and designer and the mother of "Fear of Flying" novelist Erica Jong, has died.

Jong's office announced that Mann died at her Manhattan home on Monday at age 100.

The daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Mann was born in England and emigrated to New York with her family when she was 8. She studied at the National Academy of Design and became close to fellow student Lee Krasner, later a leading abstract expressionist painter and the wife of fellow artist Jackson Pollock. Mann completed hundreds of paintings and drawings, including at least two portraits of Krasner.

She had three daughters with her husband, Seymour Mann, a musician and giftware importer who died in 2004. She is also survived by nine grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.