Chloe Caldwell: The Red Zone
A searching, galvanizing memoir about blood and love: how learning more about her period, PMS, PMDD, and the effects of hormones on moods transformed her relationships—to a new partner, to family, to non-blood kin, and to her own body—from the beloved essayist and author of Women
“In “The Red Zone,” Caldwell begins boldly, as she often has: “This morning we had a brief argument about my blood clots.” The next 284 pages show Caldwell on the long slog toward self-knowledge. Classified by Johns Hopkins as a “severe and chronic medical condition that needs attention and treatment,” PMDD symptoms can include depression, irritability, fatigue, heart palpitations, vomiting and gastrointestinal distress. As problematic as the neurological effects can be, Caldwell and her partner, Tony, mostly struggle to navigate the moody, angry and grim ways of being that the condition creates.”
The Washington Post
“In our culture, periods are not talked about often. Or the realities of stepparenting. And The Red Zone is as much a love story between Caldwell and her now-husband Tony as it is a love story between her and her stepdaughter, Sadie. It’s a rare portrayal of what healthy, loving blended families can look like. Caldwell shows readers that stepparenting is not a variation or a deviation from what love is but rather a primary and necessary form of love.”
Shondaland
It was easy to decide I wanted to write about PMDD; it’s what I was experiencing. It was what I was thinking about and what I was talking a lot about. When you write nonfiction if you’re thinking and talking about something all the time, there’s usually something there. I was into the challenge. PMDD is so mental, and I had never seen it depicted in literature or memoir. There are a few scientific books about it, but that’s it. I knew it would be challenging because it’s such a tough thing to describe to people without looking like you’re “crazy.” But I knew I wanted to see a memoir about someone’s period because I had never seen one. And I was like, Okay, well, everyone already thinks that I’m this person who writes all this personal stuff about their life, so I might as well take that and run with it — like, “Oh, you thought I wrote personal stuff then? Well, what if I write a book about my period?”
Chloe Caldwell, “the Cut”
