All Fours by Miranda July: book review
Overview: This novel is about a sorta-famous woman who is also a mother, a woman facing the realities of aging, and someone intensely battling a feeling of stasis. The novel begins with the premise that this woman will drive from LA to New York, in some kind of a bid to either find or change herself. Instead, she only makes it 30 minutes from home before settling into a roadside motel where she strikes up an affair with a fan who works at a rental car office down the road. In the second half of the book, the protagonist reckons with the findings of her botched roadtrip while reemerged in the confines of her normal life. All Fours questions the realities of modern life that are taken as given. Overall: 3
Characters: 3 There are so many interesting ideas here, but July plays a strange game of withholding with the reader that never allows a proximity that makes the novel feel worth reading or the main character one you can fully invest in. There's a weird coyness that's never born out–not disclosing why this character is famous, what kind of art she makes, and saying you're changing the name of a mega-popular celebrity that's also somehow involved in the contours of the novel just gave it a weird, uncentered feeling. The result isn't intrigue, and it doesn't lead to a big reveal. It just feels like July couldn't be bothered to come up with the concrete details that build a character. What's compelling about the story is watching the protagonist try to grapple with facing perimenopause, which is such an important thing to shed light on, but this is also not fully delivered on.
A similar flatness pervades the book. Harris, her husband, is seen only as a somewhat rigid record producer. Her child lacks more than a couple defining characteristics and seems to just serve a purpose for the story, making her a mother. Her lover also doesn't push beyond his narrow job title and passion/hobby that he expresses in a confined way. There's just not much depth here in a world that had the possibility to be so rich.
Plot: 2 This book feels like it should've been a short story. The botched roadtrip of the hook only lasts through the first third at which point the book rambles pretty aimlessly. It felt like there wasn't more story to give, and really, the best the book has to offer as a cohesive piece ends after the first few chapters. The book stalls in Monrovia.
Also, I have no issues with sex scenes in books. You all know how much I like Normal People. But I do have a belief that sex scenes need to either further the plot or deepen the reader's understanding of character–just like any scene. There has to be a reason. This book uses sex scenes in substitution for both plot and character. Also, it just felt like July needed to continuously push the envelope on how outrageous the scene could be, always upping the ante in some game with herself that didn't feel in service of the novel. Past the first third, the book just felt like a series of extremely detailed sex scenes strung together with dental floss. I get that there was a point she was trying to make in this–that this protagonist is reckoning with her changing place in the world and hormonal shifts that will impact her libido, which she ties to her identity–but there wasn't enough built around the individual sex scenes for them to be interesting or further the story. It just got boring after a while.
Writing: 3 The evasiveness, utter lack of detail except in the intimate scenes, and complete lack of cohesion in the plot made this a tough read for me. I also struggled stylistically with the fact that some dialogue was delivered in quotation marks and some was not. I really have no preference on whether they're used or not. I can see the argument either way. But going half and half was jarring and made it confusing as to what was a thought and what was actually spoken aloud. I don't really get they hype. It covers some super important themes and topics that need to be written about more extensively, sure. The execution just wan't there.
This was my first exposure to Miranda July's work, and maybe it would've benefitted from some context. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say this just wasn't for me.
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