A Year in Van Nuys

Sandra Tsing Loh, a self-described neurotic, nonachieving, downwardly mobile “Dumpy,” has started to come out of denial over the fact that she does not live in Provence. Not only does she not live in Provence, she doesn’t even live in a nice part of Los Angeles. This upper-lower-middle-class suburb in the sun-swept grid of the San Fernando Valley, consistently ranked one of the worst places to live in America, whose night sky is flamed by a million fast-food neon signs and whose streets are chockablock with carnicerias, taquerias, and pupuserias, will, she’s pretty sure, never be Provence. In A Year in Van Nuys, we find Sandra, an obscure writer, blocked at page 100 of her Great American Novel — the one that, when finished, show more will bring her fame, fortune, and the requisite country house in Provence. She’s 35 and she has eyebags like Bert Lahr, a too-rich, too-thin sister who torments her about her lack of initiative, and a $300-an-hour Malibu therapist. She writes for a failing women’s website — Amelia.com — makes a disastrous appearance on CNN, entertains a network’s idea about making a sitcom of her life, especially her eyebags, and watches new and old acquaintances alike succeed wildly at various pursuits. And this is merely the tip of the iceberg of a year in Sandra’s life. Divided by season — The Winter of Our Discontent, Spring Without Bending Your Knees, Summer Where We Winter, and Fall of Our Dearest Expectations — Sandra’s narrative charts a hilarious course through the anti-Hollywood, a morbid inferno that none other than Robert Redford called a “furnace that could destroy any creative thought that managed to creep into your brain.” The result of this journey? Not thinner thighs, smoother skin, or a kind of space-age Zen Buddhist acceptance. (Notwithstanding the fact that a wise [gay] man notes that even Madonna has an inner Van Nuys.) No, the true grail turns out to be, unbelievably enough, Maturity. Which coincides, sadly, with the official end of Youth. Which, after a brief mourning period, turns out to be an odd relief for Sandra. After all, when one is no longer burdened by Youth, or Promise, or Potential, or even worldly Interest, a writer finally finds . . . the rush is over. Sandra has all the time in the world. And on a sunny blue-sky morning, a story begins to occur to her — of a 35-year-old, with Bert Lahr eyebags, who was blocked in the course of a Great American Novel in a colorful, tattered little outpost called Van Nuys . . . show less

Amusing, wry account of herself and her life, companions, and efforts with all her brutally iconoclastic viewpoint, it does come across a as a bit scraped together so as to pile up enough material to call it a book.

Loh is crazy funny, and if you ever wanted to climb inside of the Gen X mind this is the book to do it with. Her SoCal is worlds away from that you see on ET, but that's what makes this book a priceless read. I wished it would never ever end.

Sharp and funny. An easy read about a neurotic writer. This was good, but her newer work, "The Madwoman in the Volvo" is much better and tighter.

I love to listen to Sandra Tsing Loh--her short essays/commentaries I've heard on NPR are charming and funny. This was why I read her book and was sorely disappointed. It was a thinly disguised whining about her life as a writer in California, living on her own while her husband is traveling, life with older, overbearing sister. I would have abandoned it, but hoping it would get better. No such luck.

I do not comprehend this book in the least.... I am unable to fathom, why this unending whining & mindless patter is considered funny.

No, I absolutely did not comprehend what this woman is trying to get across....

So in mimicry of the author:

This is not the first time I have thought this about her writing... In fact, I'm beginning to wonder why I even thought i might want to read this book..... It might have been the cover. In fact I'm sure it was the cover, but not the name on the cover, no that would not be what grabbed my attention. It had to have been the bright yellow background on the cover and the green palm and a gal in a turquoise track suit with a bottle of wodka (I should have stayed with the Tsing Tao) in her hand and pug show more dog tied to a lamppost (is that what that is?) on the cover.... So maybe it was the cover all along.......

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