A Year in Van Nuys (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Recently I've started coming out of denial over the fact that I do not live in Provence..." (more)
Key Phrases: swingy hair, wedding colors, Los Angeles, New York, Chris Freund (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With Tsing Loh (Depth Takes a Holiday) behind the wheel, readers are in for a crackling, witty, loop-the-loop rideno air bags, no seatbeltsacross the interior landscape of an almost-40 writer coping with the pressures and irritations of modern society. She targets such social phenomena as the Zone Diet, health clubs, plastic surgery and mass joke e-mails. Old standbys like marriage, older siblings, money and advertising are deftly dealt with, though she teeters on overkill with her primary obsession, aging. Tsing Loh, whose humorous neuroses will be familiar to listeners to public radio's Morning Edition and Marketplace, struggles with the friction between where she thinks her career, marriage, health and beauty should be and where they actually rate, with hilarious fallout. This self-described downwardly mobile nonachiever views the world through "dung-colored glasses," though her message brightens as she frees herself of youthful goals and comes to accept her age and station. Tsing Loh incorporates into her text crossed-out sentences, e-mail correspondence and outtakes from her television forays. Unfortunately, her frenetic pace and humor slow in the final section. And while the book's title suggests the looming presence of an oppressive Van Nuys, the Los Angeles suburb lacks the full intensity of Tsing Loh's ferocious stare, save for some early references (e.g., it regularly ranks as one of the worst places to live in America). But that unfulfilled promise shrinks in the face of Tsing Loh's white-knuckled, dirty-fingernailed imagination. (May)Forecast: Tsing Loh will launch her new book at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival, which she's emceeing, and will tour the West Coast. Readers throughout the rest of the nation should expect to hear Tsing Loh bemoaning Van Nuys on the radio, the first printing of 20,000 copies should sell briskly.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Thirtysomething Loh's account of the year she came to terms with the novel she'd never finish; her perfectly manicured sister; and five months spent away from her husband (he was in a band on a cruise ship) bounces from embarrassed giggles to straight-out guffaws. Interspersing her autobiographical musings with e-mail from the Web site she wrote for, squiggly diagrams suggesting Roz Chast gone mad, and encounters with her spouse, sister, therapist, and former coworkers, Loh reaches quite lovely heights of parody. A high point is her skewering of writers' groups ("Before you take that year off and write a novel, ask yourself, when's the last time I sat down and read one?"), but she's equally sharp when characterizing her mother-in-law's conversation ("fractals of stories") or insisting that she has no cultural identity whatsoever. She does have minor plastic surgery, and she's not kind to the one person featured in her account who actually is middle-aged, but it's fractured, funny, and reads like an extended NPR rap just before the top of the hour. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (May 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609809512
• ISBN-13: 978-0609809518
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #236,441 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mostly Great, June 25, 2001

By	Brett Benner (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: A Year in Van Nuys (Hardcover)

Sandra Tsing Loh's latest book reads more like a series of her hilarious essays cloaked in the guise of a novel. The novel's structure follows the character of "Sandra" through one year of her life as she struggles with writers block, perilously careens towards 36, and lives in of all places-horrors!-Van Nuys California. All of this is done with her bone dry humor in rare form, especially in the earlier half of the novel when she's expounding on the Zone diet, and Bally's Total Fitness. I loved the first two thirds, then felt it petered out a little by the end. Living in Los Angeles I found alot of the book really funny, although I don't know how people outside the city would relate. However most people in their mid thirties will find her characters plight at "what am I doing with my life" syndrome very real, funny, and a little bit scary. If you're a fan of David Sedaris, N.P.R., or just like to feel like you're hip and in the know, you'd probably enjoy this.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars hysterical, July 8, 2001

By	skspaz "skspaz" (Sherman Oaks, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Year in Van Nuys (Hardcover)

After spending uncounted months commuting from my place in suburbia-like Orange County, California to my boyfriend's less than palatial abode in Van Nuys, this book came along. It had me laughing out loud from the first page (the zone-approved turkey) and wiping my eyes at the last. For anyone who's ever thought they should write a memoir, or wanted to be like or murder a sibling, or, heck, anyone who's wondered what the hell's wrong with Californians... this is a great read. Just don't try to read it on your birthday... with a handful of Tylenol PM's.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious -- I wish I could give it MORE than five stars!, June 2, 2001

By	Kinsey Millhone (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Year in Van Nuys (Hardcover)

Have you ever had the experience of reading a book and, despite the fact that you've never met the author, felt that it was written JUST FOR YOU? Well, that's what reading A YEAR IN VAN NUYS was like for me. Never mind that I've never set foot in Van Nuys; I could relate so much to Sandra, in her mid-30s, her youth passing her by, wondering, where's that novel I should have written -- heck, where's my Oscar? I can't remember the last time a book made me laugh so hard as I was nodding, "Yes, that's so TRUE!" Sandra is the funniest woman in America and you don't have to be a Southern Californian to love this book. I'd place her right up there with David Sedaris, Merrill Markoe and Al Franken in the pantheon of Authors Who Make Me Laugh Hysterically.