Podcast Transcription: Miranda July

May 17

May 17 Podcast Transcription: Miranda July

This episode, bookseller Alyx (they/them) interviewed Miranda July (she/her), author of All Fours, a novel about an artist who plans to drive cross-country from LA to NY, for private time away from her husband and child. Early on in her journey the artist checks into a motel and is able to develop a new sense of life. Learning how to hold desire, bodily shifts, and artistry all in one hand.

The two talk about their creative processes, solitude, and balancing the existence of self and motherhood.

Alyx

Just to get us started I want to talk about your 2017 short story, The Metal Bowl, published in The New Yorker. I read a piece in Vanity Fair on you that said that The Metal Bowl was a seed for what has become your luscious monstera of a sophomore novel that we're discussing today, All Fours.

I'm curious to know more about the connection between the two works and how one has informed the other.

Miranda

So The Metal Bowl was sort of like an embarrassing story to be writing. At the time I felt just self conscious. It just seemed like a woman my age with a husband and child and she lived in LA– it just seemed like this thin veil. I actually enjoy reading stories like that, but I hadn't written stories like that. My characters had been, you know, well, of course they had emotional content from me and everyone I know. They were very – they're more “charactery”. And so this seemed like a humiliation, but nonetheless, you know, as your unconscious is sort of driving, luckily.

I submitted it to The New Yorker and it was published and it was so surprising to get all these texts and emails from my peers, from women my age who wanted to tell me their very honest confessions in a way. Not always complete, you know, like just sort of allusions to. And they weren't embarrassing. Nothing that they told me was humiliating. And I realized that, “okay, if this is sort of a mirror, none of us need to be embarrassed. Everything that's going on between us in these conversations is really interesting to me.” And I can write a whole book that was for them, essentially. That kept the conversation going in my head and was supported by obviously not just those women, but everyone I met for the next, you know, it took four years to write the book. So yeah, it's a different book for me, a real departure in that it's so engaged with the people I was talking to. I don't know how obvious that is in the final product, but in terms of how I made it, that was essential.

Alyx

I feel like this book made something private very public, but in a grounding sense. And so much of this book does take place in the mind of the protagonist and there's this yearning and like a lot of fun, deep scheming and plotting. There's also this sense of self-prescribed isolation, and the main character carves out time and space away from her responsibilities as mother and a partner for what is essentially a residency at this motel right outside of LA, and it's like a playground to explore and see what sticks.

In the book even when the muse was calling it seemed like it proved to be a challenge for her to quiet down the noise of her everyday life to listen. During the process of writing All Fours, did you ever seek out a similar solitude? And if not, how did you find time to simultaneously create and be someone's something at the same time?

Miranda

One answer to that is very specific to the process of this book. I was kind of nervous about having not just time and space, like I have this studio that I'm sitting in now, this little house, it's the rent that time forgot and I've kept it here with the death grip for 20 years.

You know how when you wake up first thing in the morning and write, it's very pure and liquid and connected to your unconscious and if you can just pull the computer into bed something is likely to happen that day. And I was like, “wow, no days like that for this book because I'm a mom now.” And the last novel, I'd written about half of it before I had a baby and then the other half with a baby and I think I was just nervous. I said to my partner at the time, “What if I spent the night one day a week in the studio and then I can wake up the next morning and pull the computer into bed?” And it's both a little thing, like yeah, sure, what's the big deal? But actually if you're a mom and married and stuff, everyone I told this to was like, “Wait, what? That's a thing we can do? We just get one night a week off?” And it was! It wasn't upsetting to anyone.Of course that's the fear is that you'll feel so guilty that it's just not worth it. It wasn't like that at all. And I think I didn't realize that it wasn't just that I needed the time, but that act, that sort of stepping away from normalcy was very much in the tenor of the book, you know? And so that becomes very clear once you read it. But yeah, looking back, the book was going to demand all these new things of me and I was going to demand them of myself.

Alyx

I think that's really beautiful and it actually reminds me of my own mother. Growing up, my mother was a dance teacher in her own time and every other Tuesday I would go and sit in the studio and the people at the front desk or the other dancers would keep me company while my mother had this private time for her to teach her classes and carve out that space. And as a kid, I didn't understand how special that was, but hearing you say that makes me think, “Wow, she really needed that time.” And there's something really powerful in that to just carve out your own private box for you to express yourself where the rest of your life might not allow that time.

Miranda

Yeah, I mean, God, when you say every other Tuesday, there's something kind of that kills me about that because it's really so little. Obviously, it was a big deal. Like you remembered it. And but I guess, you know, some of what the book asks is, “Are we compressing ourselves into every other Tuesday? Are we compressing our whole selves into a space so small, and why are we doing that?”

Alyx

I left feeling like I understood her more and her desires and her humanity after reading the book. The book really left me with this feeling of like, “Moms are just people and women experiencing menopause are just people.” And it's a shame that it takes spending hours with someone fictional to grasp that concept and to fully digest it. But it's true. And I thought perhaps I wouldn't have much to connect with going into it reading the book as someone who is in their mid 20s and childless and just completely living a different life from the protagonist, or so I thought. But her sense of seeking and exploring desire was really grounding for me and made it so accessible regardless of difference. And so that makes me want to ask when you were crafting the book, was that something that you kept in mind, that universally understood sensation of wanting something deeply and using it as a portal into the story? Or was it just like, “This is the story I'm here to tell, whether you get it or not”?

Miranda

The weird thing about being in your 40s, as I was when I was writing this is, you actually don't feel like that person that you seem like to someone in their mid 20s. Partly because the culture doesn't, like our patriarchy, it doesn't really graduate you as you go. You stay a young woman with not that much power for a really long time. And there isn't – maybe if you were, let's say a man, you might become partner –you sort of are gaining power as you go. That doesn't really happen in the same way. So you just sort of stay young, for better or worse, you know, and then suddenly you're old. It's very sudden, like that cliff on the cover. You're like, “whoa, wait, what?” And you don't have any information. I mean, you might, because you're so much younger and things are changing. [...] Whereas everyone was so involved in your body and telling you what you should look like and what you should do with your reproductive system. Suddenly, no, that all stops and just getting basic facts about what happens next or examples or like “she seems cool, you know, what she doing?” It's hard to even find people in popular culture or even in, you know, your tiny Instagram silo who you can aspire to in that way or relate to.

And so I actually wrote the book thinking this should have been there all along. It shouldn't have been so abrupt. I should have had some sense of what was coming and not just this very narrow– I mean, partly why I seem so distant to you – and I say “you” as like me when I was younger, too –is because it's not aspirational for– there's not a lot that looks great. I mean, maybe there does, I don't know. But when I think about how I sort of took for granted or– what my perception of the really important women, like female figures who helped me in my career and stuff, I worry a little that I'm not sure I could see them really as in relation to my own timeline. Like, they were just “other.” And I don't think that's our fault or accidental. I think that's by design and useful to some people, you know, that the life of someone, that sexual life, their life of power and excitement of a woman past a certain age is so inconceivable that you would of course not have a president who was an older woman because a president is a powerful position and a president has to fuck. I've kind of gotten slightly off the rails here.

Alyx

That's all right, that's all right, I'm with you!

Miranda

But our conception of power is very tied to sexuality! I mean, whether we like it or not, the sexuality of all our presidents has been something thrust into our faces, you know. Whatever, winked about, you know, and so in a way, I mean this isn't the whole answer, but you just realize that kind of power is cut off for a woman in our imaginations, not in reality.

Anyways, when I doubted in moments this book, you know, cause it's very easy to doubt yourself in this terrain, – everything is encouraging you to do that – I would sometimes think in that territory and think like, “Mo it's important if you need backup on that just think about who we're electing,” you know.

Alyx

That's really resonating. There's not enough media out there showing what life can look like if you're not a man as you get older and I think your book really was a light to see someone like my mother or the older women in my life represented on a page. That was really, really impactful.

Miranda

Yeah, thank you.

Alyx

And no spoilers for the kids at home, but the protagonist really follows her desires all the way down in this book in a way that going into it, I thought maybe like, “Oh, is this book gonna be

about a woman unhinged and not relatable?” But I was like, “This is so… this is very hinged to me,” and then following things all the way down. It took her to some unexpected places and it was a wild ride to read, a beautiful ride. And she's got this passion that lives at a hum until it becomes a scream that really takes her life off course. And there's been a few books to come out in the last few years on the subject of women and their ability to be art monsters, such as Weird Girls by Caroline Hagood and Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin, and throughout the book the protagonist was struggling to be present in her desires to be a good mother, a woman and a raw, truthful artist all at the same time. Do you think, in that balancing act, at any point, she touches Art Monster territory, abandoning responsibility for art, or is that too strong of a term for who she becomes on her journey?

Miranda

Yeah, I think that's the fear and I appreciate those books for just kind of naming that. There's a conversation in the book where the narrator and her best friend, Jordy, are talking about how they're always changing. Every time they hang out, they're a different person. And that's thrilling and scary, you know, a little painful. And it has to do, probably, whether or not they're thinking about it, partly with biology, partly the fact that they literally are sort of different people at different times of the month. And also depending on your biology, and also at different times of life, you know, you're completely sort of transforming your whole insides. And so they kind of realize that they're performing “saneness” for the world. And kind of going off your question, I guess you do that, you perform “saneness” so that you're not perceived as a monster. And it's a little moment, but Jordy, who's always maybe a little wiser than the narrator, says “ just because you're changing doesn't mean you love inconsistently. It doesn't mean you're an unstable person just because you're changing.” And I do think that's a hard thing to get through our heads because what's considered sturdy are these monolithic, rigid, just to make it clear, examples. And actually we know that things that bend and change and transform are where the strength lies because, you know, change is the only thing we know for sure. Yeah.

Alyx

Yeah, we're mutable, mutable creatures. We're gonna just keep evolving and shifting.

Miranda

I know there are some books out there that are like that, where a woman does really cross a whole bunch of lines and maybe you as a reader have to question whether, you know, you're on board with her and what it means if you're not. I actually was pretty careful for my own [sake]. I get triggered pretty easily as a mom by like, “Oh, no, but what about the child?” And I remember the question of when we really did the math, sort of editing the book, “Was she gone for three weeks from her child?” And I was like, “No, no, no, no, that's too long. It has to be in the two week realm. That's what I myself can handle.” And the copy editor was like, “Well, it technically is, maybe a little,” and you’ll see that she says two and a half -ish weeks. Yeah, which is just my own threshold. I mean, I have friends who will be gone for a month and it's fine and their kids are fine. So yeah, I was aware of that while writing it that it's not really– I'm pushing against those things, but I didn't want anyone to have to get overly anxious because that's not what the book is about. She's a great mom. That's not really the issue.

Alyx

Yeah, you got really beautifully creative with the family structures in the book. Can I ask how that all came to you? The same way that the main character, she's shifting and changing, but has this thorough line of being a good mother and trying to stick true to herself and her desires. How did you manage to capture that in the shifting family structures in the book and keeping this throughline of stability because even though the book takes us to these really tense highs and lows and then highs again there is a sense of stability in the story. Can I ask how you held onto that?

Miranda

Right. Well, I mean, in terms of marriage, I do think it's very weird that we're mostly doing marriage the same way it's always been done. Especially how much women's lives have changed since marriage was invented, as if I know when it's since 1863 when marriage was invented. (That's not what it is.) That's just bizarre to me. And I myself am working with the material of merits. And you know, just by the one night a week, you can tell that I had some skin in the game I was trying to figure out, “Now if we make things how we want them, does the whole thing fall apart? Or is there maybe more room here to make this up?” And that sounds fun and inspiring to say. Anyone who's in a long relationship, especially with a child, knows that's agonizing hell, you know, because we're afraid of abandonment and you get your sense of home and safety and the anchor from which you're able to be free. You know, it's unclear whether her freedom is tied to the fact that she has this stable home or whether the home is actually standing in the way, you know? So, yeah, I mean, these are conversations I was having with other women all the time, they weren't hard to have. And so I tried to include that as much as possible in the book, and we know it's in the culture, you know, so I didn't–, I felt like that was kind of unbelievable.

Alyx

Hello, this is Alyx from the future here. All Fours is about yearning, desire, and want, and I am here to ask some booksellers about what they yearn for.

Isabella

Hi, I’m Isabella, I work on the Kids Team at Books Are Magic and I yearn for Fall. Falling leaves, warm cider donuts, Halloween, who wouldn’t yearn for Fall?

Kevin

My name is Kevin, I’m a manager at Books Are Magic. I yearn for Golum. Golum is perfect, he’s a rotten little man, he’s sort of rat-coded. He’s perfect, I love everything Golum. And I just found out from a Variety-thing that there’s going to be a Golum Movie so… I’m so fulfilled.

Jules

This is Jules, I edit the podcast, and something that I yearn for is the grocery store Publix. I am from Florida and I think about the fact that we don’t have Publix up in New York all the time. Their subs are so good, their chicken tenders are amazing, I think about it every day.

Alyx

I have two more questions for you. It's the 21st century and in the world of storytelling and art, there's so much that has already been done. And yet in your work, you continuously find ways to flip over new stones and shine light through the cracks to show their depth. And it's incredible how fresh the air of All Fours is. It felt as fresh reading it as the cover is, of that big cliff and the outdoors and just that crisp air. And that being said, were there any particular works of art or media that fed you creatively during the writing process of the book?

Miranda

There were a lot. It's funny, I just came across a book that came out while I was writing, which was Garth Greenwell's Cleanness. I opened it, just at random the other day and there were all these notes from the book about All Fours. And I was like, “whoa, okay, I forgot.” And they're not directly tied to that book, but I think that book's very, I mean, he's a gay man writing really beautifully about sex and relationships and intimacy and art to some degree. And I think it created a sort of ocean in which to swim around and think about my own book. It's not that easy to find something that hasn't already been done before. I mean, sex is-- it's funny how narrow it gets. Not that you really asked about sex, but just it's these tropes and it's hot. Anyways, that book, I think, opened up a lot of room to be more honest about sex.

Alyx

Lastly, is there anything you're reading and or listening to at the moment that's really got its claws in you in this post-writing time in your life?

Miranda

Aha! Well, I am now finally reading all these books that I was dying to read while I was writing, but they were too close to home. I just couldn't, you know, they were just like another woman's voice that was related. So I'm finally reading Detransition, Baby now.

Alyx

I love that book.

Miranda

I'm just so– I'm in that time where you're holding the book in case there's a moment. Like I'm just keeping it with me in case there's a moment where I get to read a few more pages and then before bed and yeah, I was musing. I was like, “Is anyone making this into a movie? Or where are we at with–” Are you nodding because someone is?

Alyx

Not that I'm familiar with. No, no, no.

Miranda

I was just thinking about movies and trans representation and where are we and who would finance that and who would act in it, but I'm not even done yet, it's just very enjoyable and, God, talk about things that you haven't gotten to see on the page yet, you know? It's like often I would reread things just because I was like, “Well I'm gonna read that twice to make up for all the pages I've read that haven't had that on it.”

Alyx

I guess last last question: if you weren't consuming media, because I understand that you can't really consume and create at the same time or the voice can get muddied or trying to figure out, “Is this my voice is this someone else's voice,” what were you doing to keep yourself fresh and revitalized to keep coming back to the page to write if not consuming other books or media that might influence?

Miranda

Yeah, well, I was, I mean, like Garth's book, I was reading, I just was sort of careful about what I read. But yeah, well, probably the biggest thing was these weekly conversations I'd have with my friend, the sculptor, Isabel Albuquerque, who herself actually has a beautiful art book [Isabelle Albuquerque: Orgy for Ten People in One Body]. The work she was making while I was making All Fours was a series of sculptures called Orgy for Ten People in One Body. And so that body of work and my book are very much in conversation with each other. And we were talking about all the things in the book for many years. And so I feel very close to those sculptures that she made. And there's, you know, the careful reader will see that the book is dedicated to Isabel and that Jordy is also a sculptor, her fictional friend. So I think a really intimate ongoing conversation where you're holding a thread, you know, over years is the kind of thing you need to sustain a book. I mean, that is what a book is, but you kind of need it in real life too, especially when you're going into territory that feels dangerous or risky or you can't be alone. You can't be totally alone.

Alyx

Well thank you so much for joining me today!

Miranda

Thank you so much.

You can get your copy of All Fours by Miranda July or any of her other titles on our website!

Sources Mentioned:

All Fours by Miranda July

The Metal Bowl – an article written by Miranda July for The New Yorker

Miranda July on Writing a Book That Takes On the Adventure of Aging – a feature of July in Vanity Fair

Weird Girls by Caroline Hagood

Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin

Warner Bros. to Release ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie ‘The Hunt for Golum’ in 2026, Peter Jackson to Produce, Andy Serkis to Direct – feature in Variety