Miranda July's new book 'All Fours' reflects on the lives of women

Miranda July is known for her whimsical characters and intimate, mysterious stories about what it means to be human. His first major film, “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” was released to great acclaim in 2005, and a collection of short fiction films, “No One Belongs Here More than You,” won the Frank O' International Short Story Award. Connor in his publication in 2007. With a background rooted in DIY, magazines, video and performance art, it is easy to detect July's influence on the zeitgeist, especially in the practice of “being online”, in memes, social networks and other actions, public or personal. .

July has taken a creative and life-giving step, at age 50, with her new novel, “All Fours,” her first since 2015's “The First Bad Man.” A visit to her new home/former office in Los Angeles , just before its appearance at the LA Times Festival of Books, revealed a place bursting with creative energy. July has been renovating a new living space with his characteristic joy. It was obvious how much pleasure she took in her new butter-colored cabinets and her friends' artwork. After celebrating her 50th birthday in February, July flew to Milan to launch her first solo museum exhibition, “New Society,” at the Prada Foundation, giving her enough time to return to the United States for the publication of “ All Fours” on Tuesday.

“It's not getting any more boring,” he says of life. “It's getting weirder and weirder!”

Talking about the genesis of the novel, which tells the story of a “semi-famous” artist who decides to take a road trip from Los Angeles to New York, leaving her husband and son at home, but instead goes Stopping at a hotel less than an hour from Los Angeles and falling in love with a rental car employee, July found a delicate spot in his life as he grew older.

“I'm the type of person who's always excited about my future and it seems like there's a lot to look forward to,” July said. “But around 40 I started to worry about the years ahead. When I looked ahead, it seemed shocking… it was a narrowing and darkening of the road ahead. What was it going to be like for my body, my face, my sexuality? My conversations with other women were becoming more radical and they were all questioning everything. But it's this whole network of whispers. Because, the shame. Shame is like this cork that holds back all this vivid life.”

“All Fours” began as a chronicle of the lived experiences of women, with each chapter named after a different woman. July had thousands and thousands of notes on her phone with real-life anecdotes, “plucking them for the narrator,” she said. In the end, the book changed shape. “Fiction is my superpower,” July said, “all of my previous work has super characters. But there were some moments in 'The First Bad Man' that were more honest, more personal, and they were some of my favorite moments in the book. I thought, 'I want to go further.'”

The result is a novel that delves into that tender bruise about the anxiety of aging, about what it means to have an aging female body and long for the freedom to live a fuller life. Like all of July's work, “All Fours” is a wild ride. It's deeply funny and painfully true. Of what she feels is her marital responsibility to her husband, the narrator tells readers that “sometimes I could hear Harris' cock hissing impatiently like a teapot, in higher and higher tones until finally I couldn't stand it.” and then I started.” While she prepares lunch for her son, she relates: “The problem was not the lunch, but what came after, the rest of my life.” When she feels ashamed of spending hours on the phone with her best friend, Jordi, she remembers: “It was my only chance a week to be myself.”

July fans may realize that the “semi-famous” narrator of “All Fours” and July have a lot in common. July published in Instagram in 2022 that she and her husband, filmmaker Mike Mills, had separated romantically but remained a loving family. But she's not too worried about the autobiographical nature of the book. “Assign me to the character, okay. She could write like this forever. He is like a character played by me. I can do whatever I want with it. Compared to other writers, like my friend Sheila Heti or writers like Annie Ernaux, I feel very old-school nerdy because I come up with characters and plot twists, and I'm a bit Hollywood in my love of a big reveal!

That said, incorporating his personal experience into the book proved difficult. July works continuously and energetically at her craft. “I was writing at the pace of my life,” she said. “There were changes in perspective that I would like my character to have that I would usually have months or even years to process before turning them into fiction. In the end, I was writing and throwing things away to get to the level of writing fiction. But I am very proud that I rode the wave and that it took me to a fictional coast that seemed like my truth.”

When asked how writing a book is different from other media, July said she felt like it was a different kind of acting. “A lot of writing is improvisation: you're improvising on the page. I read aloud a lot and I can hear the reader is a little confused. There is a ‘will it play’ quality that you ask about in the interpretation, and that feeling exists in the reader as well.”

There's a bit of magic involved in making that connection. July hopes readers will absorb her book once she is released into the world. Her latest film, “Kajillionaire,” came out during the pandemic and it was the first time she read reactions in her direct messages. “I asked everyone if I could take a screenshot and post their answers because they were all feeling very alone, and I wanted them to see that they were not alone because their answers were very similar. That's useful to me: the feeling that you threw the ball and it was caught. It is not falling forever through space.”

Reading “All Fours” feels like being seen, like being caught and held, making those connections and realizing that our experiences aren't so isolating; in fact, that the increasingly narrow and dark road ahead is like the set of a movie. It looks real from the front, but there is nothing substantial behind it. Nothing left to fear. July's commitment to expanding the space when it comes to our sexuality is joyfully radical.

“Often when I finish a project, I think, 'Whew! Thank God I don't have to work in that medium for a while!' But I don’t have that with this book,” July said. “It's a little confusing because this is not my creative pattern but the narrator's voice is still with me. He was joking with a friend and I said, 'What am I going to do? Write All Fives?'. “That would be a terrible title.”

Ferri is the owner of Womb House Books and the author, most recently, of “Silent Cities San Francisco.”