If you’ve been traipsing around the ‘new book recommendations’ corners of the internet that I frequent, you’ve likely already read the (very effective) hook for July’s latest novel:
“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, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey.”
It certainly was effective on me, and I dived into this novel with reckless abandon.
It’s hard for me to review this book without spoiling the narrative. I guess, in broad strokes, I’d call it a tale of a midlife crisis through a peri-menopause lens. As someone who is staring down the barrel of peri in my near future, I am eager to read stories of this time and understand how I can best navigate the choppy waters ahead.
But in relation to this particular story… I hope it looks a lot different for me than it does for the main character in All Fours. Because yikes. I got the sense throughout that there is a lot of truth behind the tale the July weaves, and if so, I hope she’s doing okay. Reading this novel was akin to watching a train derail in slow motion. But I suspect for many women the story will ring true. From what I’ve observed of my friends, it seems that midlife for women can bring a confidence to upend things. Things that are not necessarily broken, but more so an upending of ennui. To continue with the trainwreck theme, it struck me that the main character in All Fours is staring ahead at her life on rails and, though it’s not an unpleasant journey, it lacks the excitement of the unknown. It lacks adventure. And there is a deep itch (that may only be felt at this point in life) that a life on rails simply cannot scratch. So a derailment is not necessarily a tragedy, so much as a choice.
I am thankful for July for sharing this story. It felt a bit like Nightbitch to me, in a good way.
Overall, 4 antique silk bedspreads out of 5.