Miranda July

A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey. Miranda July's second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July's wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman's quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic and domestic life of a 45-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectations while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.

All Fours

Emiley Jones

The only dangerous lie was one that asked me to compress myself down into a single convenient entity that one person could understand. I was a kaleidoscope, each glittering piece of glass changing as I turned. 

…but most of life is a vapor of unconscious associations, never brought to light.

If birth was being thrown energetically up into the air, we aged as we rose. At the height of our ascent we were middle-aged and then we fell for the rest of our lives, the whole second half. Falling might take just as long, but it was nothing like rising. 

So. It wasn't over. The past could come back, fully formed, at any moment, unlocked by a random combination of sounds and movements.

But surely a woman was more complex than a puppet boy and she might become herself not once-and-for-all but cyclically: waxing, waning, sometimes disappearing altogether. 

So, this was the cost of that free feeling each morning. Brutal. But there was enough hypocrisy built into life, one shouldn't choose it.

Maybe they were curious about the haunted house but not so curious that they wanted to risk their own home becoming haunted.

…if I took all these things at once I could black out for an hour or two, but it wasn't worth it; waking up to reality was worse than already being there.

“…but it's actually the most stable position. Like a table. It's hard to be knocked down when you're on all fours."

katie h.

"Everyone thinks doggy style is so vulnerable," Jordi said, "but it's actually the most stable position. Like a table. It's hard to be knocked down when you're on all fours."

All Fours quotes

Join the club