All Fours

Me and Miranda July

Dear men of middle age, not Middle Earth or the Middle Ages, just you guys in your 40s and 50s,

Read this book —All Fours by Miranda July.

You may be wondering why I’m starting with you, and why this book, All Fours by Miranda July. It’s because if you really want to understand what’s happening with the women in your lives right now, this book might crack open a perspective you’ve been missing. Reading it, you’ll begin to grasp what’s going on at the core of your female contemporaries—because, trust me, it’s wild in here.

During a woman’s 40s, she’s being deconstructed—sometimes by parenting, work, caretaking, societal expectations, and hormones. It’s a kind of renovation, but not the Pinterest-ready, before-and-after kind. No, this is being stripped right down to the studs, with her raw essence revealed whether she wants it to be or not. As a society, we rarely talk about this transformation. Instead, we brush it off with labels like “crazy,” "hysterical," "labile,” (gross, the doctors love this word, labile, I hate it), "angry," "cold," "controlling," or "scary." Sound familiar?

Then came the revolution, one viral TikTok at a time. Enter Dr. Mary Clare Haver, the OB-GYN who blew up on social media, declaring what we all needed to hear: that this phase of a woman’s life is a real developmental stage—like the terrible twos or puberty. Except now, the primary driving force of her existence is shutting down , only to be replaced by… well, some other motor that runs on a cholesterol free mystery fuel (lmk if you find out where the reserves are located) and if she’s on the rails like me, a nice cocktail of estradiol and progesterone.

It’s terrifying for women, and yes, probably for you, too. Relationships change, boundaries harden, truths get told with a fierceness you haven’t seen before. And it’s not just emotional upheaval—our bodies shift again, desires morph, and the way we love transforms in ways we didn’t expect. Having just crawled out of the chaos (still crawling, btw), I think that the only other times in my life that were similarly terrifying were puberty and postpartum. Got my ass kicked up and down the street with those as well. Some women do it gracefully (high five to these sisters), I did not.

Which brings me back to All Fours. I tore through it a couple of weeks ago, in a haze of delight, terror, and more than a little introspection. Miranda July gets it. The book’s tension is relentless—it starts high and just keeps ratcheting up. This is the kind of writing that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. I spoke to my friend Hilary when she was about a third of the way through. “How can this possibly keep going?” she asked.

I told her, “Oh shit, just buckle up and hold on.” —All I could think of was Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross yelling, “Always Be Closing!” From a writing craft perspective, that’s exactly what July does—escalation and tension, scene after scene. It’s her superpower, and Holy Hell! does she wield it with precision.

So men, All Fours can be a doorway into the chaos. It can help ask the serious questions that need asking with answers that create resilience rather than distance.

Also, here’s to my writing group, The Fuckahs and the well-read

Sarah Orman

from A Reader’s Compendium for the recommendation—because sometimes, you need to be reminded that we’re all just figuring it out, one page at a time.