All Fours

In the first pages of the book, the narrator's husband states very authoritatively, in the way straight white man with cultural capital do, that in this world there are two kind of people, drivers and parkers. He's at a party, and everyone around him, especially his wife, take this very seriously, in the way people do when straight white man with cultural capital say something with conviction; in fact, one could is the rest of the book as her vain quest to be a driver.

A few pages later, she recalls a conversation with her best friend, where they were describing to each other how they have sex with their partners. They are both in long-term relations and struggle to fit sex into their domestic lives. But while the narrator deals with it by being in her head and playing raunchy scenarios, her friend Jodi gets into a sweaty bodily tangle with her life, and grinds. They both have a moment of envy for one another, and the narrator concludes that people can be divided into kind of people with respect to sex, those who are mind-rooted, and those who are body-rooted. One could see the rest of the book as the narrator semi-successful quest to have more body-rooted sex.

There is a lot of sex in this book, and a lot of thinking about sex. It is romantic sex, weird sex, rebound sex, eye-opening sex, routine sex, but never boring, described with a lot of curiosity, and respect for the other person and for the many ways sex can enrich one's life. There are also a lot of implausible and quirky situations, but, contrary to other works of July, they always feel very honest, like Miranda was saying: OK, we know this is not exactly what happened to me, but we both understand the basic impulse that I'm trying to get at. And there is also a lot humour.

On some level, this is also a book about a wealthy white artsy New Yorker with a fulfilling job and a loving family, who feels trapped and reclaim her rights to be happy. She's conscious of the injustices inherent to the nuclear family model that she inhabits, but never thinks beyond that, never reads the news. Lucky her at this time. But also: damn her. She is also quite snobbish (e.g. see her characterisation of Davey's girlfriend); when she falls madly in love with a provincial hunk, she can only rationalise it by writing an American-dream ending for him, as a successful dancer in New York.

This book is so rich in great things. It is about being a human and being an artist and it is just very real even at its most improbable moments.

Pretty much every scene comes across as being deeply felt and serious, and this seriousness combined with MJ’s humour is impressive. There are also lots of twists in the narrative that surprised me and then made me think “of course!” (e.g. when the protagonist meets Audra and realises that she’s already bought a quilt from her.)

Why not 5 stars?

Firstly because I didn’t like how the protagonist’s whisky money is presented as a kind of lucky accident when she is basically just so rich. She’s so rich that she can do anything, and she pretty much does. I think there’s some tension between that fact and the way she talks about hormones and ageing and desire and femininity as universal issues (or issues universal to women). This is someone who regularly flies from LA to Oakland to visit her girlfriend!

Secondly, because I’m still wondering about the role of queerness and/or lesbian desire in this novel and I thought the relationship with Kris was much less precisely described than the rest of the novel. Clearly lesbians are required for the protagonist’s quest to reach its conclusion - but why? This is probably something I can ramble about indefinitely; maybe I will edit this later to add my theories.