Miranda July’s New Novel Takes on Marriage, Desire, and Perimenopause
May 21, 2024
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Author Miranda July discusses her new novel exploring marriage, desire, and perimenopause. She delves into the disparity in information about middle age, drawing inspiration from her own experiences. The podcast touches on themes of aging, marriage, desire, and perimenopause, offering a candid conversation about personal journeys and inspirations.
Miranda July highlights the lack of information on perimenopause and midlife challenges, influencing her novel's narrative.
'The Cliff' in Miranda July's novel symbolizes the abrupt hormonal decline and life changes in middle age, reflecting fears and uncertainties of aging.
Deep dives
Exploring Middle Age Challenges
The podcast episode delves into the challenges and transitions of middle age as portrayed in Miranda July's new novel. The protagonist embarks on a road trip aiming for New York, yet encounters life-changing events upon reaching Monrovia. July explores themes of perimenopause, desire, marriage, and motherhood with a raw and honest perspective, reflecting on her personal experiences and insights as she navigates this stage of life.
The Symbolism of 'The Cliff'
Miranda July introduces the concept of 'The Cliff' in her novel, symbolizing the abrupt decline in hormones and the drastic life changes that come with reaching middle age. This metaphorical cliff represents the fear and uncertainty about the future beyond the age of 50, mirroring the internal struggles and transitions faced by the novel's protagonist and reflecting July's introspective exploration of aging and self-discovery.
Expression Through Dance and Physicality
Miranda July discusses the role of dance and physical expression in her work, highlighting how movement and bodily experiences convey emotions and narratives that transcend traditional forms of communication. By incorporating dance into her novel, July explores themes of desire, connection, and self-discovery, using the body as a medium to convey complex emotions and experiences. Dance becomes a powerful tool for storytelling, allowing characters to connect on a deeper, non-verbal level and explore the richness of human relationships.
Some time in her forties, something shifted in Miranda July. She started having “this new, grim feeling about the future, which was weird, because I’m, like, a very excited, hopeful person,” she tells New Yorker staff writer Alexandra Schwartz, who recently profiled July for the magazine. July attributes some of that “feeling” to the disparity between all the information there was about her reproductive years, and how little there was about middle age and perimenopause. “If it’s stories that we need, you know, dibs. Dibs on menopause,” she tells Schwartz. July’s explorations and conversations with other women made their way into her new novel, “All Fours,” about a woman who upends her life and her marriage, and her sense of who she is and who she’ll be in the second half of her life. Miranda July is fifty now, and she is taking some pages from her own book.
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