All Fours caught a bit of buzz in 2024 for its premise — a married woman upending her life on a quest for freedom and a sexual awakening. It was on all the must-read lists and Miranda July is a respected writer and film director, so I put it on my TBR list.
The unnamed narrator is a 45-year-old, semi-successful artist married to a music producer with whom she has a son. She is of course happy about being a mom, even though the birth was a traumatic one, but she feels unappreciated. This being the midlife, her sex life is of course, lackluster. That all changes when she unexpectedly receives a chunk of money from her work and decides to drive across the country (from Los Angeles to New York) and stay at an expensive hotel. Treat herself, basically.
‘But the men always had to be older than me because if they were my same age then it became too obvious how much more powerful I was and this was a turnoff for both of us. Men needed a head start for it to be even.’
— All Fours by Miranda July
This barely takes off because she only gets as far as a nearby small town where she inexplicably starts a weird affair with a younger, married man. She checks into a rundown motel and decides to remodel it completely — new mattress, new sheets, new floor — all the while coming to terms with her aging, perimenopausal body as well as apparently having a sexual awakening.
Off the bat, I’ll say I don’t fit the target demographic for this book. Therefore, I don’t relate to some of the issues discussed — motherhood, menopause, the feeling of invisibility to potential romantic partners past a certain age. Many middle-aged readers resonated with it though, particularly the desire to free themselves from the predictability of their home lives and go on a meandering adventure. But I found it to be quite a frustrating read.
I did not understand the motivations for any of the character’s decisions. For instance, why she decides to renovate a room at a motel she did not own. It seemed a waste of money to me. Obviously, the whole farce had some kind of symbolism — rejection of the old/of aging, desire for renewal or something along those lines. Still, that instantly alienated me as a reader.
For all the fuss about her affair with the younger married man, they end up doing very little; some dancing, some weird period stuff… The New York Times rightly titled their review ‘Adultery Gets Weird in Miranda July’s New Novel’. Many readers on Reddit hated the ending, as did I. It was not only anticlimactic, but also pivoted in an unexpected and somewhat sad direction. I read what was supposed to be the midlife awakening and thought, oh no. It made me wilt on the inside.
I did finish the book, as the writing was quite good. There were some poignant points made, but the story itself felt more frivolous and absurd than meaningful to me. It got so much hype that when I read it and didn’t enjoy it; it warped my reality a bit. I wondered, is it them or me? I imagine that’s how people who don’t like Game of Thrones feel (what a joyless universe y’all exist in). A three-star read for me.
What are you reading?
