All Fours by Miranda July

31 May 2025

All Fours by Miranda July

Miranda July, 51, has had a long career; she wrote and directed her first play at age 16 and is now an author, actress, director, and screenwriter. Although she was born in Vermont, it appears she has spent most of her adult life on the west coast—which is fairly apparent given the setting and characters (caricatures?) in All Fours.

July’s novel, All Fours, was mixed bag for me. I struggled to hold space and empathy for the protagonist, a 45-year-old perimenopausal woman, specifically because she was so shamelessly self-centered that her behaviors bordered on narcissistic, and she was so vapid and flaky that her connections with others felt only surface-deep. It’s not only that she wasn’t likeable; it’s also that I couldn’t relate—she didn’t seem real or human to me. Even if despicable, a character can still inspire compassion if their motives are raw and real and human. But our protagonist here rarely tells anyone the truth, often not even herself. It’s a disingenuousness that I am wary of in people…plus she calls her kid they/them because she doesn’t wish to impose gender standards upon them. While I support gender fluidity, transgenderism, etc., it seems to me that not calling a child by their gender at birth borders on abuse. It’s almost gaslight-y and frankly, kinda creepy. I mean, if you want to have those conversations with your underage child, by all means, go for it. But calling the kid they/them throughout the novel gave me the wiggles.

All that said, our protagonist’s struggles with midlife indecision, sexual reawakening, and, most poignantly, perimenopause, struck home for me. These struggles are very real in my own life and probably in most mid-forties women’s lives. Moreover, perimenopause symptomology and experiences are rarely aired in the light of day. I’m not sure if it’s just my age as I approach this life change, and my social media is feeding me more of this information because of its relevance to me, or if it’s becoming more and more acceptable to discuss menopause and the woman’s changing body. Either way, I am grateful for this cultural shift toward openness regarding women’s experiences. And I’m double grateful to July for the research she did for this novel on the topic. You can read in her acknowledgements page the army women she interviewed about their lived experiences and the three doctors she interviewed for technical information (an obgyn, a naturopathic doctor and midwife, and another naturopathic doctor).

While the main character and her circumstances were by no means relatable to me, the themes and overarching message are vital.