Women’s Prize shortlist book review – “All Fours” by Miranda July

This book has caused quite a stir in literary circles and is possibly the most remarkable and unusual books that made it to the Women’s Prize shortlist. There was quite a lot of sex on the shortlist this year – an intense lesbian relationship in The Safekeep, the book that won the prize, as well as sex as exploration and rebellion in Good Girl and as relief from the pressures of a confined life in Fundamentally. But All Fours is pretty much all about sex and one woman’s search for her fundamental sexual core as she enters a new phase of her life.

The book is first person narrated and our central character (unnamed) is a moderately successful filmmaker and writer who enjoys a modicum of fame but has never fully lived up to the promise that her one really popular work suggested. She is in her 40s and now lives in LA with her partner Harris and their young child Sam. Her life has become somewhat routine and her relationship has settled into a loving but comfortable and predictable dynamic. She has a close bond with her child; as a baby they almost died following a very rare pregnancy complication where a foetus would normally die, and the event resonates throughout her life. 

As a gift to herself, the narrator, supported by her partner, decides to go on a road trip to New York, where she will spend time in a fancy hotel and enjoy a writing retreat to make some headway on her current project. Soon after she sets off from home, however, she decides to make a detour and finds herself at a motel, a mere half an hour from her home. At a car rental showroom she finds herself deeply attracted to one of the employees, Davey, a young married man whose wife, Claire, is an aspiring interior designer. 

What happens next is inexplicable to both the reader and the narrator who finds herself drawn along a strange path where she sets about to transform her dingey motel room, with Claire’s help, into something resembling a boutique Parisian hotel room. She also seduces Davey and the two embark on an unusual, intense, sexual relationship. All the while, the narrator, lies to Harris and Sam, telling them first about the road trip and second about New York. 

During her sojourn at the motel, the narrator undergoes a deep exploration of her life and her soul. With Davey she explores all parts of her sexual self. To say this is a ‘menopause novel’ is too simplistic, but the narrator’s age (forty-five) and her anticipation of the change that she fears is about to swallow her, undoubtedly drives the crisis she is experiencing. There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to the novel – she disappears into a kind of time warp, where collisions with her real life (calls with Harris and Sam) jar and seem unreal. She is at once desperate to be with them again, to have the reassurance of their stability, but also desperate to escape, tortured by the thought that life has nothing more to give her sexually. 

The novel is explicit as well as at times being very dark and at times very funny. The narrator is very self-aware but also very unknowing about herself, which is why she needs to go on this journey – both literal and metaphorical. Once she leaves the motel, one thing is for sure – her life will never be the same again. 

I really enjoyed the book. The sex is very graphic but pretty well done – I only recall cringing once or twice which is not much given that there is a lot of it! It’s also a really challenging book – as it sets out to question the ordinary lives most of us lead and it’s difficult not to ask yourself, is this enough? So it may be an uncomfortable read for some. It gives the middle finger to Trump-era America with its gender fluidity and libertarian approach to sex and sexuality; it may be far too “woke” for some, but I consider that a plus. 

A brave book and an interesting choice for the Women’s Prize shortlist – that said, it could not really have been left off it.