I am so glad you wrote about this! I have been aching to discuss this book but, like you, the second half fizzled for me.
The first part of All Fours had me feeling giddy. It had me searching online to figure out if she had ever talked about being neurodivergent (as far as I can tell, no) because this was the first work of hers I consumed after realizing that I was autistic — her other work had always seemed to resonate with me and I wondered if this might be why.
To me the entire book read as though it was a heavily masking woman slowly realizing that not only is not everyone else merely pretending to be who they think they need to be, but realizing that her capacity to keep the mask on is getting lower as she ages. Highly relatable for me even as a childless, fat queer woman!
I didn’t feel my normal disappointment about the passage you quoted, in fact I kind of liked how the narrator described Audra as humoring her as she gets up to leave, and it makes the narrator realize that she had been viewing her all wrong. Audra was having plenty of sex, didn’t need a thin younger woman to find her sexy, and was a far less pathetic woman than the narrator. I guess I read that passage to be July’s way of showing the narrator’s aversion to bigger bodies as a limiting and illogical choice, and I felt oddly affirmed by it? This is not at ALL to say that I think my view is correct, I am historically terrible at understanding authorial intent, and I was overall left disappointed in the book despite finding so much of it electric.
I hope this isn’t coming across as me attempting to contradict how that passage landed for you and instead comes across as me having Big Feelings about this book.
Final hmm moment for me: the “clean eating” callouts throughout the book pinged on my past orthorexia, and for some reason I kept reading it as July showing how the narrator thought she could be a good person through her food choices, that she was desperate for others to praise her for the purity of what she was eating, which was what I wanted during my decades chasing the “good fatty” trope, and I read it as a criticism of that behavior. Reconsidering that July actually just included it without any of that depth, ugh!
Thanks again for writing about this! I hope my verbose reply didn’t come across as anything other than me reckoning with how I gave July a benefit of the doubt that I think was undeserved. I considered myself far past the point of excusing any media that is careless about hurting fat people!
Thank you for this reading, I really appreciate it and love that that is how the passage landed for you! I think all readings are valid always. For me, I would have been able to read the passage as transformative as you describe only if the narrator shifts her opinion around fatness and bigger bodies after the sexual encounter, but that revelation, if it happened, is for me off the page/not in the text yet. I believe Audra remains negatively portrayed even after they have sex and the narrator's obsession with thinness doesn't change/evolve after the encounter.
Yes I have been waiting for some analysis of the portrayals of fatness in this book!! So thank you for writing this. I also enjoyed reading All Fours but was made uncomfortable by the same descriptions of Audra that you point out, along with the narrator's seemingly uninterrogated obsession with food, intense exercise, and weight (with the numbers being SO LOW and somehow she is still lifting weights and it's empowering or something??). At times I wanted to give a generous reading on this: was this meant to communicate something about the narrator's fear of aging and to critique her problematic inability to imagine a life after menopause that's not only good but GREAT? Some of the stuff about Audra was getting there but still gave me an ick. And then, on another note, I didn't love the narrative of "woman in heterosexual marriage finds new freedom through polyamory, something she thinks she is the first person ever to discover!!" I'm not even poly but was like, this is all just very ordinary for a lot of queer people and it's being presented here kind of like some miraculous solution or something.
Mmmm yes yes yes to all of this! The alarmingly low numbers for her weight and intense exercise seemed like they could have served a point/been interrogated but ultimately weren't. Agree on the polyamory material being tired and very queer 101!
Appreciated the themes of the book—especially the plain old notion that women get restless, too, not just poor domesticated dudes, but the borderline body-horror descriptions of various bodies, esp Audra’s body, made me quease a bit. I think at one point while reading yet another bit that seemed to exalt thinness, I patted my c-section shelf on my very midlife belly and was like, “there there old girl! it’s okay!”
I loved All Fours and it gave me so much food for thought, but there was a lot that felt jarring and unwelcome—like the narrator disclosing her weight multiple times.
Like you I have loved the immersive interestingness of July’s writing. I think that on reading your fab review and then the other angle on the same scene, I might get the book from my public library and manage my expectations. Kind of like I have to do in a lot of my reading. Which is why I so value people like you! Thank you
For Boston (or really Cambridge/Somerville) ice cream recs, my favorite is Honeycomb, which is nearish to Porter Square. People also really love Gracie's, which is right near where your event will be (see you there!).
Have you read Alice Austen Lived Here by Alex Gino? It's a very sweet, short middle grade novel about two nonbinary friends who do a school project on Alice Austen and it has great queer and fat rep!
I am so glad you wrote about this! I have been aching to discuss this book but, like you, the second half fizzled for me.
The first part of All Fours had me feeling giddy. It had me searching online to figure out if she had ever talked about being neurodivergent (as far as I can tell, no) because this was the first work of hers I consumed after realizing that I was autistic — her other work had always seemed to resonate with me and I wondered if this might be why.
To me the entire book read as though it was a heavily masking woman slowly realizing that not only is not everyone else merely pretending to be who they think they need to be, but realizing that her capacity to keep the mask on is getting lower as she ages. Highly relatable for me even as a childless, fat queer woman!
I didn’t feel my normal disappointment about the passage you quoted, in fact I kind of liked how the narrator described Audra as humoring her as she gets up to leave, and it makes the narrator realize that she had been viewing her all wrong. Audra was having plenty of sex, didn’t need a thin younger woman to find her sexy, and was a far less pathetic woman than the narrator. I guess I read that passage to be July’s way of showing the narrator’s aversion to bigger bodies as a limiting and illogical choice, and I felt oddly affirmed by it? This is not at ALL to say that I think my view is correct, I am historically terrible at understanding authorial intent, and I was overall left disappointed in the book despite finding so much of it electric.
I hope this isn’t coming across as me attempting to contradict how that passage landed for you and instead comes across as me having Big Feelings about this book.
Final hmm moment for me: the “clean eating” callouts throughout the book pinged on my past orthorexia, and for some reason I kept reading it as July showing how the narrator thought she could be a good person through her food choices, that she was desperate for others to praise her for the purity of what she was eating, which was what I wanted during my decades chasing the “good fatty” trope, and I read it as a criticism of that behavior. Reconsidering that July actually just included it without any of that depth, ugh!
Thanks again for writing about this! I hope my verbose reply didn’t come across as anything other than me reckoning with how I gave July a benefit of the doubt that I think was undeserved. I considered myself far past the point of excusing any media that is careless about hurting fat people!
Thank you for this reading, I really appreciate it and love that that is how the passage landed for you! I think all readings are valid always. For me, I would have been able to read the passage as transformative as you describe only if the narrator shifts her opinion around fatness and bigger bodies after the sexual encounter, but that revelation, if it happened, is for me off the page/not in the text yet. I believe Audra remains negatively portrayed even after they have sex and the narrator's obsession with thinness doesn't change/evolve after the encounter.
Yes I have been waiting for some analysis of the portrayals of fatness in this book!! So thank you for writing this. I also enjoyed reading All Fours but was made uncomfortable by the same descriptions of Audra that you point out, along with the narrator's seemingly uninterrogated obsession with food, intense exercise, and weight (with the numbers being SO LOW and somehow she is still lifting weights and it's empowering or something??). At times I wanted to give a generous reading on this: was this meant to communicate something about the narrator's fear of aging and to critique her problematic inability to imagine a life after menopause that's not only good but GREAT? Some of the stuff about Audra was getting there but still gave me an ick. And then, on another note, I didn't love the narrative of "woman in heterosexual marriage finds new freedom through polyamory, something she thinks she is the first person ever to discover!!" I'm not even poly but was like, this is all just very ordinary for a lot of queer people and it's being presented here kind of like some miraculous solution or something.
Mmmm yes yes yes to all of this! The alarmingly low numbers for her weight and intense exercise seemed like they could have served a point/been interrogated but ultimately weren't. Agree on the polyamory material being tired and very queer 101!
Thank you for writing this. I loved the book for many reasons, but now I can name the discomfort I felt during that passage and that it left me with.
Totally, there's much to love in the book too. Thank you for reading!
Appreciated the themes of the book—especially the plain old notion that women get restless, too, not just poor domesticated dudes, but the borderline body-horror descriptions of various bodies, esp Audra’s body, made me quease a bit. I think at one point while reading yet another bit that seemed to exalt thinness, I patted my c-section shelf on my very midlife belly and was like, “there there old girl! it’s okay!”
I am reading Housemates on a road trip to Nashville and I adore it! 💖 (I know it’s not the topic of this post. Still adore Housemates.)
Totally loved this essay and everything by Emma Copley Eisenberg!
thanks sm Carley!
I loved All Fours and it gave me so much food for thought, but there was a lot that felt jarring and unwelcome—like the narrator disclosing her weight multiple times.
oh man I forgot about the weight numbers!!!
Like you I have loved the immersive interestingness of July’s writing. I think that on reading your fab review and then the other angle on the same scene, I might get the book from my public library and manage my expectations. Kind of like I have to do in a lot of my reading. Which is why I so value people like you! Thank you
Totally -- I would never tell a July fan not to read it!
This is so moving, thank you for sharing!
For Boston (or really Cambridge/Somerville) ice cream recs, my favorite is Honeycomb, which is nearish to Porter Square. People also really love Gracie's, which is right near where your event will be (see you there!).
Have you read Alice Austen Lived Here by Alex Gino? It's a very sweet, short middle grade novel about two nonbinary friends who do a school project on Alice Austen and it has great queer and fat rep!
THANK YOU on all counts! I've heard really good things about Honeycomb and yay can't wait to meet you!! (Also I have not, incredible rec ty)
Sadly I’m no longer doing Les Bleus on 7/25, I’ve rescheduled for a different date, thanks for your interest!