This is a story about the year I exploded into flames. Which turns out to be more common than youd think, among forty-something humans. Yea, we can hold it together in our thirties, with a raft of hair products and semi-tall nonfat half-caf beverages and much brisk walking to a lot of interesting appointments. Come the forties, though, cracks begin to appear. One staggers suddenly along lifes path; gourmet coffee splats; the wig slips askew. In other words, my friends, THE WHEELS COME OFF.Sandra Tsing Loh is the fiercest, funniest, and most incredibly honest and self-deprecating voice to emerge from the mommy war debates. In Mother on Fire, she fires away with her trademark hilarious satire of societal and personal irks large and small, including limo liberals who preach the virtues of public school but send their children to fashionable private ones, the proliferation of costly skin-care products that just dont cut it, societys obsession with aromatherapy, her Chinese fathers disdain for her life as an artist, and $10 Target pants (Are they running pants, exercise pants, pajama pants?) that are the ubiquitous Mother of Small Children uniform. Prompted by her own midlife crisis, Loh throws her frantic energy not into illicit affairs, shopping binges, or exotic trips, but into the harrowing heart of contemporary, dysfunctional L.A. life when she realizes that she cant afford private school for her daughter, and her only alternative is her neighborhoods public school, Guavatorina, where most of the kids speak Spanish and qualify for free lunches. In a theater-of-the-absurd-style odyssey, Mother on Fire documents Lohs year of living dangerously among pompous school admissions officials, lactose-intolerant, Prius-driving parents, mafia dons of public radio, vindictive bosses, and old friends with new money as she first kisses assand then kicks it.From the Hardcover edition.