All Fours

A 2024 BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK FOR BBC R4 OPEN BOOK, THE OBSERVER, GQ, GRAZIA, HERO, I-D, NYLON

A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic and domestic life of a 45-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectations while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.

“I found myself reading All Fours in solitude, because as I read I’d started making sounds that were recognizably laughter but were also expulsions of heartbreak and what I’ll call a cleansing sorrow.  If the United States had the good sense to name national treasures, I’d nominate Miranda July.” —Michael Cunningham, author of Day

“A giddy, bold, mind-blowing tour de force by one of our most important literary writers.”—George Saunders, Booker-Prize winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo

“Profound and bawdy and deeply human, a brilliant work of art from a completely blown-open and fearless mind.”—Emma Cline, New York Timesbestselling author of The Guest