A review by emilyinherhead
All Fours by Miranda July

challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

But it wasn’t a performance, was it? No, nothing I did ever was. It was only ever the truth of the moment, coming out freely and expecting to be understood, not made much of, just taken seriously like any honest speech. It was dumb, but anything smarter would miss the point. I was speaking now to all my friends and family: You have all missed the point of me. (69)

This novel starts with an artist going on a solo road trip to New York to visit with friends and enjoy some time alone—but she stops just thirty minutes away from home and checks into a motel room, where she ends up staying a bit longer than expected.

You could sum up what happens with a simple statement, like “the main character becomes infatuated with a man she meets and they have an affair for a couple of weeks,” but that doesn’t capture it at all. This is a story about marriage and desire, yes, but it’s also about art, what-if, gender, sex, agency, perimenopause, bodies, longing, self-expression, and what it feels like for a woman to get older. In classic Miranda July fashion, it is weird! But it is also intimate, and tender, and profound. (And occasionally quite steamy.)

While I’m not as old as the protagonist just yet, I could sympathize deeply with a lot of her concerns about work and aging. I’m betting this story will resonate with a lot of people who are in or approaching a similar stage of life.

I felt untethered from my age and femininity and thus swimming in great new swaths of freedom and time. One might shift again and again like this, through intimacies, and not outpace oldness exactly, but match its weirdness, its flagrant specificity, with one’s own. (212)

I’d recommend it if you like off-beat main characters (Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino and Everyone in this Room Will Someday be Dead by Emily Austin immediately spring to mind), if you enjoy contemplating big questions about existence and connection, or you’re already a fan of July’s work—tonally, All Fours feels right at home with her earlier writing and films.