Miranda July's "All Fours" is the most Miranda July thing Miranda July has ever done, and that's a compliment. An unnamed 45-year-old artist sets out to drive from Los Angeles to New York. Instead, she stops at a motel 30 minutes from home and spends a week redecorating the room and developing an obsession with a younger man who works at a car rental agency.
The premise sounds like a comedy. It is, sometimes. But July uses this act of radical non-compliance as the starting point for a searching, uncomfortable novel about perimenopause, desire, creative stagnation, and the architecture of a marriage.
July writes about the body with unflinching specificity. Hot flashes, hormonal shifts, and sexual desire in middle age are treated as worthy subjects, not punchlines. The novel's frankness about female aging is genuinely transgressive.
The structure mirrors its protagonist's refusal to follow the expected path. The narrative wanders, doubles back, makes impulsive choices. It can be frustrating. Some readers will lose patience with the protagonist's self-absorption. But that's July's point: women aren't allowed to be this selfish, this weird, this honest about what they want.
Uneven but unforgettable. A novel that will make you uncomfortable in productive ways.