All Fours

by Miranda July

Contemporary

Literary Fiction

336 Pages

"July writes about female desire with a rawness and humor that makes you feel less alone in your own messy humanity."

Synopsis

A semi-autobiographical artist, wife, and mother in her mid-forties decides to take a solo driving trip from Los Angeles to New York, ostensibly to clear her head and work on her art. But she never makes it past the first night, instead stopping at a motel in Monrovia, just twenty miles from home, where she becomes obsessed with the young man working at a nearby Hertz rental office. What begins as a planned cross-country journey transforms into an intense, weeks-long exploration of desire, fantasy, and the constraints of domestic life. As she renovates her motel room and navigates an unconsummated but emotionally charged relationship, the narrator confronts her assumptions about marriage, motherhood, and middle age. All Fours is July's unflinching examination of what happens when a woman allows herself to want something—anything—outside the prescribed boundaries of her life. Through her characteristic blend of vulnerability and dark humor, July creates a protagonist who is simultaneously relatable and shocking, familiar and completely unexpected. The novel explores themes of creative stagnation, sexual awakening, and the often absurd compromises of modern relationships with July's signature style of radical honesty and unexpected tenderness.

Our Take

Miranda July has always been unafraid to excavate the uncomfortable truths of human experience, and All Fours represents her most daring and accomplished work yet. The novel's genius lies in its refusal to pathologize or romanticize its protagonist's choices, instead presenting them as natural, if unexpected, responses to the pressures of contemporary womanhood. July's prose combines the psychological acuity of My Education by Susan Choi with the domestic surrealism of Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill, creating something entirely her own. The book's exploration of perimenopause, creative drought, and marital ennui feels groundbreaking in its specificity and honesty—these are conversations rarely had in literary fiction with such candor and complexity. July's background in performance art brings a theatrical quality to the narrative that makes even mundane moments feel charged with meaning. Her ability to find humor in situations that could easily become tragic or pathetic is remarkable, creating a reading experience that's both deeply uncomfortable and surprisingly joyful. This is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary fiction that pushes boundaries, challenges conventions, and refuses to provide easy answers about love, desire, and the choices women make when nobody's watching.