Finally, a midlife crisis novel that's not about a man

Many of the “great” novels of the last century have taken as their subject middle-aged men who wake up one morning to find that their boring mid-level management jobs, mediocre children, and elderly wives are wearing them down. In the mid- to late 20th century, literary lions such as Saul Bellow, John Updike, and Philip Roth wrote thick novels about domestic life and American masculinity, and critics praised them for their “universal” themes of middle- and upper-class men struggling. against the shackles of duty while going through midlife crises.

Now it's American women's turn. Miranda July's novel about an anonymous Los Angeles woman's adjustment to middle age brims with vivacity. It is a novel that imagines the end of fertility as something joyful. “All Fours” visualizes perimenopause as a second bloom.

The 40-something white protagonist, a wealthy artist whose work across genres brought her early fame, contemplates the life she and her husband have made with their son. The wheels are set in motion when, at a cocktail party, her husband reflects that there are two types of people: those who park and the drivers: “Drivers are able to maintain attention and commitment even when life is boring. They don't need applause for every little thing. …The Parkers…need a discreet task that seems impossible, something that requires all the concentration for which they could receive applause. …The rest of the time they are bored and fundamentally a little… upset.“

Stung by his criticism – “what he called disappointment was really just depression” – she decides that instead of flying to her upcoming engagements in New York, she will embark on a cross-country trip and return to her family in just under three weeks. . Determined to “maintain awareness and commitment,” in her car it is impossible for her to get out of her own head. Unable to find anything of interest along the way, she doesn't travel far before stopping for lunch and ends up checking into a cheap motel.

The result is a deliciously bawdy and emotionally rich novel about the whirlwind that occurs when the physical and emotional upheavals of midlife collide.

Surprised by her own decision to stay at the motel, the narrator considers returning home. “This was the thought that had kept every woman from her greatness,” she thinks. “There didn't have to be an answer to the question of why; everything important started out mysterious and this mystery was like a great sea that you had to be brave enough to cross… You had to endure a deep sense of wrong… the more experienced parts of me just had to be patient, hold my tongue, their many sharp tongues… and give the new girl a chance.”

At first, she sees the moment as an opportunity to start a new creative project, but she feels stuck in the dirty motel room. She had him redecorated, but she still hasn't gotten the inspiration for the job. Instead, she finds herself seeking to escape the long twilight of her emotions, a life stripped of color that has become a continuous cycle of working her way through waves of panic and depression. In her now luxurious cave, she can cope with the ongoing grief over the tragic and traumatic birth of her son, her blocked creative work, and her marriage.

Initially thinking that an adventure will bring her new life, she falls in love with a local man she has met. Her new room, with its brightly colored walls and soft furnishings, serves as a metonym for this reconnection with her physical being.

A friend challenges her as she develops her romance fantasies with this man, Davy. “What happens after that? …Take Wile for example. E. Coyote and the roadrunner. If he gets the bird, then who is he? What is the cartoon about? Thus, July realistically explores any magical resolution offered by any love interest. Choosing Davy would mean giving up her marriage and, more importantly, her child. Motherly love, the avalanche of emotions the artist feels when she thinks of her son, reminds her that she cannot simply abandon her old life in search of something new.

The frustrated Odysseus returns home to find his domestic life unsatisfying. Complicating matters is the news that he is entering perimenopause, ending his “fertile years.” Convinced that this signals the end of all desire, she focuses on enjoying the desire while she still has it. Her insistent libido finds no release in her husband; instead, she fantasizes about Davy. She joins a gym, determined to create a body that Davy will enjoy. She longs to hold the male gaze.

She reaches out to other women and talks to them about sexual desire and her experiences with fertility, hysterectomy, and menopause. How can a marriage, entered into when young, adapt to the ways in which a couple changes and grows? The stories of each of her friends, with intimate and obscene details, offer company in a phase of female life that is often lived alone and with few resources. Reading those details in a literary novel was exciting.

What if a woman's midlife crisis isn't a story of decline? What if women's 40s were about moving into a new cycle, one in which the constant ruler of reproductive concerns is removed? So what?

Miranda July questions these questions with deep, earthy candor, approaching them from the perspective of her privileged white narrator. But July's book opens up possibilities for other women to tell these stories with a multitude of voices, exploring what it means for a woman to fully inhabit her middle-aged body.

May a thousand flowers bloom.

Lorraine Berry is a writer and critic in Eugene, Oregon. @BerryFLW