Get High on All Fours: A Review of All Fours: A Novel by Miranda July
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by Tommy Rowlands
All Fours was recommended to me by two men. Separately. One, a famous actor, in his 70s. Straight, as far as I’m aware. The other, a famous writer, also in his 70s, and straightish, as far as I’m aware. They both stated that it was their novel of the year, that the humor and sex were on point and the writing was solid. When I told a friend that I’d been asked to review All Fours, she took a breath and wondered out loud if I was going to skewer Miranda July. My friend’s an immensely talented, young, writer. I was surprised. Not with the thought that I may skewer a novel, but with the fact that it was a woman who suspected I might. All Fours has ostensibly been dubbed a Great American Menopause Novel, and women across the Global North have set up reading groups to facilitate dialogue and build community. This is great. So why would my friend think I may have thoughts? Because I’m a man? Because I’m gay? Because I’m a gay man that writes about sex alot? Because I’m pretty much the same age as the protagonist, and have also been known to fall into limerence with unattainable men a couple of decades younger? Did she think that All Fours would be too raw for me and my only response would be to try and tear it down, as certain men are wont to do? Rest assured, dear reader, the only skewering that came to mind while reading was adjacent to the protagonist's fantasies regarding Davey, the young object of affection who acts as the catalyst for transformation. I have been known to turn crazy at the sight of a toned young man changing t-shirts, too. I related to the protagonist on this level; the longing, the limerence, the borderline obsession with a fantasy that feels safer than reality. July writes with a searching honesty about the mundane considerations of clandestine desire. The outfits. The casual stalking. There is humor in this vaguely abject realm of the human condition, and also a sinister undertone if the sexes were reversed. Power is amorphous in this world. Our protagonist tries to incite sexual relations with someone younger, and it is partly through her status that she achieves this, and yet her power and status is still not enough to grant her her desire. As a writer, I am consistently asked if what I write is “real”, it’s a reasonable question from a non-artist. The answer I give is well rehearsed. As I was reading All Fours, I found myself thinking about this same question, and whether it matters. The parallels between the protagonist and July are obviously concrete and with that, I found the work to be a paean to the examined life, to art, to vulnerability. I find something magnetic in writing that exposes, and in the acknowledgments, July thanks Maggie Nelson and Sheila Heti, amongst many other women. These writers are seasoned chroniclers of the self, constructed and otherwise. I feel, however, that there is a level of obfuscation in the novel. The abject lurks a little too deeply beneath the surface. There is plenty of “shocking” content between the covers and July captures the viscerality of human sexuality in poignant ways. There is a boldness to the explicit interactions and how they are written and yet, at times I felt that perhaps there had been cycles of sanitation imposed upon July; a feel good optimism incongruent with the abjection our protagonist is faced with. Perhaps, it was a trade-off to keep one particularly subversive scene that July wasn’t willing to tone down or remove? Or maybe a metanarrative; Speak Your Truth (but make it cute), a quotidian consideration for women traversing the Western bind. I concur with the men who told me to read All Fours, it’s a solid novel, humorous and has some great sex. I also concur with the many women who have taken this text and devised ways to open dialogue about their lived experiences. And, this feels too diminutive an opinion. There is something subtly sublime to the existential liminality July conveys. This is the self as hyper-object, too gargantuan to really comprehend, and too recognizable to run from. As an individual with many intersecting identities shared by our protagonist, I was moved by the mirror held up to me. The novel wraps its politics in Chaplinesque pathos, and there is a quietly devastating rejection of nihilism in the protagonist’s odyssey towards meaning. All Fours is real life; messy, beautiful, and crushing, often all at once. It is a love story to the self. A call to action. All Fours shows us that pursuing our desires can be a noble task, regardless of the path we take. I loved it. Maybe you will too. Tommy Rowlands is a London based writer of contemporary fiction and poetry. SHARE - Issue: 1.8 / April 2026 |