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Sometimes my hatred of older women almost knocked me over, it came on so abruptly, she admits.
These free spirits who thought they could just invent the value of things.
She has just turned 45.
The particulars of her life and work strongly, provocatively, resemble Julys.
One of the pleasures ofAll Foursis surprise.
(I dont want to ruin it, but again: that tampon!)
Another is Julys ability to take familiar, everyday experiences and return them strange and new and precisely voiced.
What she had to say, though, was far more unexpected.
She doesnt sink into melancholy but indulges in animated speculation, venturing into the weirder territories of the mind.
To the degree she saw us older women, she pitied us.
At this doctors visit that the narrator learns she is officially perimenopausal.
She cant lose her sex drive; she just found it!
She becomes fixated on having sex with Davey before she stops having sex altogether.
Perhapsfixatedisnt the right word.
In one sense, the narrators crisis is universal.
You only live once how should you live?
Have you made the right calls?
Is there time to make different ones?
What do you want so much that youre willing to give everything else up to have it?
Theres something seductive and fascinating about watching someone shape their life like a project.
A life in this book is something to be curated, designed, and maximized.
Eventually, she becomes less thinking and more feeling.
I see that Pip is taking off her shoes and I die.
I see that I am squeezing a nipple and I die.
Why is aging so scary?
For some, the deterioration of the body is innately disturbing.
Getting older is the first time that the narrator ofAll Fourshas had to confront dissatisfaction with her body.
Shes pretty and thin and has, a woman in her 20s observes, great skin.
I recorded from a different angle, but it didnt help.
Something had happened back there; there was no way to know exactly when.
It was like when you cant find your purse and then realize its been stolen.
Also, theres a tushy on her abdomen, below the navel.
Its a dissociated logic, and it doesnt last.
For others, aging is frightening because of where it ends.
But the narrator ofAll Foursis not overly preoccupied with death.
It was always a relief when a flashback came over me.
I hadnt forgotten; I was still a good mother.
Deterioration is bad, death is inevitable, though disappearance is whatAll Foursreally fears.
It just pulls your whole life down.
InAll Fours,the narrator is constantly aware of whether and how she is perceived by others.
All my limbs were in motion, making shapes that felt brand new.
She cant tell if her friends are impressed or embarrassed for her.
The hosts father looked me up and down and winked he was in his 80s.
Was that how old a person had to be to think I was hot these days?
The answer is no.
The lesson she learns about aging is that, actually, sheisnttoo old.
The younger guy wanted her all along.
Davey is not just any aspiring hip-hop dancer; his boogie is divine.
InAll Fours, dance for those who speak its language is a blissful space free of shame.
A novel is written in words, after all; wordless communication is what plants do.
It speaks frankly about womens bodies; shes a master of sentences.
As the narrators marriage evolves, the book falls apart.
Everyone is very mature.
To some extent, this is a matter of sensibility.
Mine like Julys used to be is tragic.
I could always be how I was in the room, she decides.
Imperfect, ungendered, game, unashamed.
It sounds just a little too much like having it all.
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