All Fours

All Fours by Miranda July (2024) For people up to a certain age the title will evoke sexual positions. People older than that, perhaps, will think of searching for that thing they just dropped that has entered another realm. It’s a good title—you remember it. There was a funny bit in The First Bad Man (2015) that cracked me up so much I still think of it occasionally and laugh (I’m not going to say what it is, since that never comes off, out of context). So I was hoping Miranda July would write another novel, and I hope she writes more. I was concerned though—I’d heard some things in advance (I try not to do that)—it was about menopause, and it was about dance—not my most relatable subjects. Actually, knowing nothing about menopause, I thought, maybe this is my other-than-Wikipedia chance. It’s something I’d have liked to talk to my mom about before she died—but add that to the list of missed opportunity regrets. I glanced through the book, another thing one should not do. That “Don’t judge a book by its cover!” expression really means don’t glance though, reading bits here and there, because a book—at least the linear narrative kind—is a collection of one word after another—in order! I guess I (sometimes) glance through to give myself the excuse to move onto something else. I’d also heard there was a lot of sex—something else I’m not comfortable with—though I’m certainly okay with it (after all, I endure Philp Roth)—and lately, really prefer sex to any type of violence. Also, I did see this graph of, I guess, hormone cycles of men and woman—and I thought: graphs? But this led to a subtle joke—MJ’s unique sense of humor—but I won’t give it or anything else away! I feel like it’s a weakness of mine to want to read about people like myself—with similar interests. But I guess it’s nice to expand a little—it helps when there’s something to hold on to—and in this case it’s humor as much as anything. Also, the character’s eccentricity. It’s first person, but the protagonist (a couple decades younger than me) is feeling old—so it’s also a kind of midlife crisis book—my favorite! The character is nameless, I guess—and her friends and husband don’t refer to her by name, and her non-binary child probably calls her mom. She’s an artist—but since it’s not entirely clear what her “projects” are, you might naturally defer to MJ’s projects—and her seemingly putting equal importance on all art forms, including, maybe, grocery shopping. Even though she comes off as a bit scattered, her past (offscreen) success seems justified when you witness her “new project” with herself at the center—seemingly chaotic—but frighteningly impressive in its intensity and improvisatory focus. I did actually think a little bit if Cassavetes—and in particular, Gena Rowlands’ characters (this was just before she died). Another thing that kept me going is—I just wanted to know—what was going to happen, like a mystery. Should be part of all books, maybe (it’s not), but whatever way you get there, you want the reader to care (and I did). I’m not going to reveal more, except to say, for me, I think this will be a memorable book—and some of those will be the best kind of laughs.

9.3.24