A 2014 New York Times Book Review Notable Book From an "imaginatively twisted and fearless" writer (Los Angeles Times), a hilarious memoir of middle age. In a voice that is wry, disarming, and totally candid, Sandra Tsing Loh tells the moving and laugh-out-loud tale of her roller coaster through “the change.” This is not your grandmother’s menopause story. Loh chronicles utterly relatable, everyday perils: raising preteen daughters, weathering hormonal changes, and going through the ups and downs of a career and a relationship. She writes also about an affair and the explosion of her marriage, the pressures of keeping her daughters off Facebook while managing the legal and marital hijinks of her eighty-nine-year-old dad, and a despairing withdrawal to a tiny cabin where she combined wine and Ambien, paralyzing her arm into a claw. In one outrageous chapter, a hormonal Loh finds herself trekking to her preteen daughter’s school to confront a ten-year-old bully half her size. In another she attempts to subsist on only zero-calorie noodles and the occasional fat-free yogurt in a hopeless effort to vanquish added midlife weight. In The Madwoman in the Volvo Loh speaks hilariously and honestly about her life as a mother, a daughter, and an artist. She recounts her journey through a tumultuous time of life, trying to maintain appearances during an epic hormonal―and that means physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual―change. The upbeat conclusion: it does get better.

The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones

Biographies & Memoirs

Loh, Sandra Tsing

Memoirs

W.W.Norton & Company

From an “imaginatively twisted and fearless” writer (Los Angeles Times), a hilarious memoir of middle age.
In a voice that is wry, disarming, and totally candid, Sandra Tsing Loh tells the moving and laugh-out-loud tale of her roller coaster through "the change." This is not your grandmother's menopause story. Loh chronicles utterly relatable, everyday perils: raising preteen daughters, weathering hormonal changes, and the ups and downs of a career and a relationship. She writes also about an affair and the explosion of her marriage, while managing the legal and marital hijinks of her eighty-nine-year-old dad. The upbeat conclusion: it does get better.

Community & Culture

I don't remember exactly when my formerly charming, humorous, omnipotent mother, who would swim a mile out into the ocean to get your beach ball in choppy seas, did the great recede. But she was a tide gradually but irrevocably washing out, she retreated, she receded, she drifted away, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. In ancient times, tribal women went alone to caves during menopause. Today, the 50 million menopausal women in America turn to cheery self-help books. As for Loh and her female friends, they are determined not to go quietly into their sixth decade, but instead opt for a desert festival of debauchery and half-nude stoners. Based on her acclaimed memoir of the same title that Booklist calls "hilarious, comforting and enlightening ?, Loh's play is a hilarious, provocative, often moving consideration of what it is to be a woman in a society that values and reveres youth. The Mad Woman in the Volvo received its world premiere on 3 January 2016 at South Coast Repertory, California.

The Madwoman in the Volvo (Modern Plays)

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Methuen Drama

In a voice that is wry, disarming, and totally candid, Sandra Tsing Loh tells the moving and laugh-out-loud tale of her roller coaster ride through “the change.” This is not your grandmother’s menopause story.

Center Point Pub

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Loh, Sandra Tsing. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Loh, Sandra Tsing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Loh, Sandra Tsing. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones

The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones

The Madwoman in the Volvo (Modern Plays)

The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones