Read[H]er: "All Fours" by Miranda July and "Open Me" by Lisa Locascio

Waylaid.

My experience of these novels could not have been more different: All Fours I listened to as an audiobook during a long summer commute and was a book whose author I knew and admired; Open Me was a book I picked up because it looked interesting and was on a discount rack and was written by an author who was new to me. Yet for my very different encounters with them, both novels are shockingly similar in plot and in the landscapes of desire they traverse.

For starters (spoiler-free; I won’t talk in much detail about the plot of All Fours because part of its power comes from its ability to surprise the reader over and over again): both novels chart the path of female protagonists who set off on ambitious journeys yet whose course gets disturbed almost immediately. July’s narrator plans a solo trip cross-country, from California to New York, one that is meant to recharge her as an artist but also meant to be an act of rare indulgence. July’s narrator has come into an unexpected bit of money, and she and her partner eventually agree that she should spend it with some freedom, on a trip that will reconnect her with NYC and all of the friendships and culture that inspires her there. In Locascio’s novel, the protagonist Roxana is a recent high school graduate who has decided to study abroad in Paris before committing to college. She plans to attend a study abroad program with her best friend in an effort to know herself better, or to define herself anew. Neither narrator’s journey takes her where she expects to go, but both protagonists end up charting unexpected paths that open up new understandings of themselves and the lives that remain before them.

Both stories also involve sexual exploration as a crucial part of the women’s journeys. I consider myself pretty hard to shock, but I will confess that there were times that I reddened at some of the more explicit passages in July’s novel (this might have something to do with the fact that I was listening to the novel being read by July herself, who is known as an performer as well as an author, so the intimacy of the story was very immediate and visceral). Locascio’s novel is in part a reworking of Lady Chatterly’s Lover, something a reader might pick up on even before the first explicit allusion to the novel itself, so you know it’s going to involve hot sex in the woods at the some point.

The differences between the novels largely account for my overall estimation of them; beyond the plot, it’s not entirely fair to compare them. Locascio’s is a debut novel that, while not entirely satisfying in its pacing or outcome, heralds a welcome addition to the literary world. July is an experienced performer, artist, screenwriter, director, and novelist; All Fours is a work of experience and wisdom gained over decades. The novel never ceases to surprise: just as I thought I had the plot figured out, the narrator would make a decision wholly contrary to what I expected, yet in the end completely right in its own way. There are things I heard in this novel that I have never heard anyone say out loud (again, the benefit of the audiobook—which in this case I recommend over the print edition) and many things I was grateful to hear articulated. It thrills me that a novel as unconventional and bold and genuinely strange as this one could be nominated by for a National Book Award; I will remember it not only for its sexual daring but for what July dares to say about her embodied experience as a woman and an artist.

I finished listening to All Fours on the way to work one day and after the last words were uttered I just sat in silence for a long time. I didn’t want to or need to hear anything else for a while; I rolled the window down and instead tried to pay closer attention to what the world around me sounded like.