For years, I've enjoyed Sandra Tsing Loh's public radio riffs and her witty-pithy (she might call them "withy") essays on the struggles of juggling work, kids and marriage.
She could be that smart friend who had you snorting with laughter on the commute home, exposing the absurdities of modern life. It was a seamless blending of art and life, animated with an unflagging honesty.
That changed for me in recent days with the publication of "The Case Against Marriage," which left me feeling oddly defensive on behalf of her husband, deflated on behalf of identity-challenged men and less than sanguine with the notion that the personal necessarily must become political.
Loh admits she had an affair and that she and her husband are divorcing after some two decades together, in the lengthy disquisition featured in the July-August edition of the Atlantic.
What's more, she urges the rest of us to "avoid marriage -- or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love."
I suspect I will not be the only Loh fan dismayed by a piece of work that simultaneously goes too far -- letting the "flaming jet fuselage" of her own wrecked relationship cloud all marriage -- and not far enough -- failing to address any of the specific details that sent her partnership into a tailspin.
The result is a piece that's thoroughly provocative and strangely bloodless, the anti-marriage burden of proof foisted on a few didactic authors and the anonymous tales of a pair of Loh's unhappy, sex-starved friends.
Loh doubtless experienced the "regret, suffering and bent over double weeping" she described in an accompanying video. I'm sure she spared us many of the details in an attempt to cushion the blow for her family, particularly her husband. But you can't help but wonder if she does as much damage letting the general speak for the specific.
The essay and Loh's take on marriage will no doubt provoke much discussion, particularly in Los Angeles, the setting for most of her long run of books (most recently "Mother on Fire"), solo shows and regular radio bon mots, currently featured on KPCC-FM (89.3) in "The Loh Down on Science" and "The Loh Life."
In an interview Tuesday, the 47-year-old Loh said her breakup has already triggered both empathy and disdain. Supporters include women who "do a lot of secret self-examination, but are afraid to utter aloud" their misgivings about marriage.
