41. Miranda July On All Fours: A Cross-Species Odyssey
This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library.
Miranda July's All Fours is available for purchase here.
Miranda July’s All Fours is, at first glance, a piercing exploration of a middle-aged woman’s sexual and existential awakening. But look closer—squint, perhaps, as though sizing up a mouse—and you’ll see that this is not simply a book about one woman’s journey. It is, in fact, a book of and for cats. July has written a novel that speaks to their sensibilities, their rhythms, their secret lives, that embodies their physicality in its very title.
The plot, ostensibly about a 45-year-old artist whose road trip detours into a motel affair with a younger man, is overtly felid in character. The protagonist moves through her life like a majestic Bengal locked indoors—restless, pent-up, yearning for escape. Her journey is not linear but instinctual, driven by impulses that feel more like prowling than plotting. She observes her surroundings with the sharp, detached precision of a natural carnivore, and her relationships, too, carry the ambivalence of a cat’s affection: fleeting, intense, and always on her terms.
July, of course, has always had a soft spot for the feline perspective. Her 2011 film, The Future, famously includes narration by a cat named Paw Paw, whose voice is a plaintive meditation on love, mortality, being and time. Paw Paw’s presence transforms the film into something deeper—a study of existence as seen through the eyes of a creature who understands mortality in its purest, most unforgiving form. It’s a feline philosophy, one that hinges on patience, observation, and the occasional reckless leap.
In All Fours, that philosophy has been smuggled onto every page. The protagonist’s affair with the younger man is less about lust and more about a kind of animal curiosity, an exploration of territory long considered forbidden. Her movements, her thoughts, even her silences resonate with the spirit of a puss stretching itself into new corners of the world. The novel’s prose, too, mirrors the feline cadence: sharp, deliberate, and punctuated by moments of startling intensity.
But why, you may ask, would cats need a book like this? The answer lies in liberation. Cats, for all their independence, are often as trapped as their human counterparts—confined by the hubris of their owners. All Fours offers them a roadmap to freedom, a reminder that even the most domesticated among us can rediscover the wildness within. It’s a call to action for cats everywhere, an invitation to roam beyond their perceived boundaries and reclaim their instinctual power.
Imagine a cat reading this book — the way its ears would twitch at the protagonist’s blunt observations, the way its tail would flick at her defiance. This is not anthropomorphism; it is a recognition of the shared truths between species. Cats, like humans, yearn for more than the lives they’ve been handed. They, too, deserve stories that reflect their agonies and triumphs.
This week’s podcast tells us exactly why.
This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel.
Miranda July's All Fours is available for purchase here.
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