Everything Is Content - All Fours, Miranda July - Everything In Conversation, Book Club

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

It's conversation day!This week, we’re discussing All Fours by Miranda July, so just to flag, this episode will contain spoilers, so if you’re planning on reading the book and don’t want to know what happens, maybe bank this episode for a future listen.Despite a great critical reception, the novel has certainly been divisive among readers, and most definitely in our DMs.The novel follows a 45-year-old perimenopausal woman who, after having an extramarital affair during a road trip, has a sexual awakening. It covers themes that we often love to discuss on the podcast, such as relationships, motherhood, aging, mortality, desire, intimacy, identity and ultimately, the meaning of life.We hope you enjoy this special book club episode - please do slide into our dms with any other books you'd love us to feature + talk about.We'll see you on Friday for the main ep,O, R, B xWe will see you Friday :)  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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That's where we decide on topics and get all of your juiciest opinions and hottest takes. But first the headlines from the EIC newsroom. Pope Francis died on Easter Monday aged 88. Many people were saddened by the news commenting on his more liberal views, especially towards the LGBTQ community. And Father Gabriel Rominelli of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza said they're grieving his death as the Pope made nightly phone calls from the start of the war in October 2023. Timothée Chalamet's mum, Nicole Flender, gave a rare comment about his relationship with Kylie Jenner. I have to say she's lovely, she said.

Another mother is spilling the beans, this time Beyonce's. Businesswoman and fashion designer Tina Knowles told Nour Nanji at BBC News ahead of the publication of her new memoir Matriarch that she quote, worries about the fame impacting her grandchildren. If I had my first choice, they would not have to deal with the things that they have had to deal with as kids, she says. One day they'll read the ignorance that people put out there about them, the lies and all of that, she says. And I do worry about that. Films made with AI can win Oscars. Academy says that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued new rules on Monday which said the use of AI and other digital tools

would neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination. Elizabeth Hurley and Billy Ray Cyrus are a couple. The singer 63 and the actress 59 sent the internet into a frenzy on Easter Sunday as they announced their relationship to the world with an Instagram snap of them canoodling by a fence in a field. Ayoah Dabiri and Will Sharp are set to lead a rom-com series, Prodigies, for Apple TV+. It follows two former child prodigies in their 30s who question whether their ordinary lives and long-term relationship live up to their exceptional childhood. Sharp created the series and wrote and will direct it.

The first teaser has been released for Mountainhead, the feature directorial debut from succession creator Jesse Armstrong, starring Steve Carell, Rami Youssef, Jason Schwartzman and Andy Daly. It follows a group of billionaire friends who get together against the backdrop of an international crisis, premiering May 31st on Max. Sarah Jessica Barker has confirmed she has no problem with Carrie, even though half the internet seems to hate the sex and the city protagonist now. It's been such a sort of extraordinary experience, she said. I try to describe it as being contractually obligated to play somebody else, be somebody else for about 27 years, to behave in ways which would be illegal if I, as a married

person with children, ways in which I would behave in a city or with men. I feel I have such implicit trust and faith in showrunner Michael Patrick and his extraordinary writing staff that, though decisions sometimes, I recognise, might be controversial or give people grief or have people have very big feelings, it's incredibly fun to do, Parker explained. So I really love it. And that's all from the headlines this week. On to our book club. So All Fours by Miranda July was published in May 2024 and the novel was shortlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for fiction and was listed as 2024 Book of the Year by

Open Book, BBC Radio 4, The Observer, GQ, Grazia, ID and Nylon magazine among others. Miranda July is a multi-disciplinary artist. She's a filmmaker, artist and writer. But despite a great critical reception, the novel has certainly been very divisive among readers and most definitely divisive in RDMs. So the story follows a 45-year-old perimenopausal woman who, after having an extramarital affair during a road trip, has a sort of sexual awakening. And the unnamed semi-famous artist basically decides to go on this road trip, this long drive from LA to New York, has a sort of sectional awakening. And the unnamed semi-famous artist basically decides to go on this road trip, this long drive from LA to New York,

after her husband makes a comment at a party about there being two types of people. He says, there are drivers who are able to maintain awareness and engagement even when life is boring. They don't need applause for every little thing. They can get joy from petting a dog or hanging out with their kid, and that's enough.

Parkers, on the other hand, need a discrete task that seems impossible, something that takes every bit of focus and for which they might receive applause. And yet, despite her plans to prove herself as a driver, she stops her journey a couple of towns over from where she's left her husband and child and books herself into a motel. And she then hires an interior designer to completely redecorate the space, even though she only plans on staying there for a couple of weeks.

And during this fallow time, when she's supposed to be racking up miles on the freeway, the unnamed narrator reckons with herself and her life and enters into this strange psychosexual affair with a younger man. And to quote from the narrator, she says, "'The only dangerous lie was one that asked me "'to compress myself down into a single convenient entity

"'that one person could understand. "'I was a kaleidoscope, each glittering piece of glass, "'changing as I turned.'" Now this was one of my first reads this year. I actually listened to the audio book and I loved it so much that I badgered Beth and Ritira to read it too. And now here we are.

And it covers themes that we often love to discuss on the podcast, like relationships, motherhood, aging, mortality, desire, intimacy, identity, and ultimately the meaning of life. So some people hated it, others, myself included, absolutely loved it. What, we haven't actually spoken about this, so I would love to know both for you, what did you think of all fours?

I really enjoyed reading this too. I really enjoyed the humour in it. I really loved the kind of meditations on life and also ageism and this kind of personal reckoning that the narrator has with so many different topics and ultimately comes to a place of learning about themselves, about life, about what it is to live a meaningful life. And I feel like, I don't know, all the things I read, consume, listen to, that I love the most at the moment is that kind of central theme of what is it to live a good life and how do we get to that place? Or is it a constant reevaluation and constant relearning of how

to get to that place? And I feel like this book maybe touched me at a perfect time because that is just a concept that I am obsessed with at the minute. What about you, Beth? So I'm really glad actually we got quite a few DMs from people that didn't love this book just so we can have the other side of it because I am not going to be bringing it. I also loved this book. I found it so incredibly fluid. I think it also, same as you, I think it hit me at the right time. I think it's very smart. I think it's compellingly readable. I think that's what, you know, when people stick quotes on books they've not read, but I did read this. I think it's, I just could not stop turning the page. I mean, I, so first

I read it and then I listened to the audiobook off your recommendation and only because Miranda July reads it. And I think she's a fantastic speaker. I think I loved that this book was very moving. It was very hard to read in points, which we'll get onto both kind of quite embarrassing, quite like, you know, humiliating moments, but also quite distressing moments. But it was very funny as well. And I think she does these hilarious turns of phrase throughout such a deaf writer. And I think I like a book that does that takes you apart, but also makes you laugh or makes you sit there and go, that was a corker. And I think very funny, devastating. That's what life is. Really. That's my overview. I really loved it.

I agree. I think forget any of the plot and just her way with words and her sentence structure and the way she can describe really kind of boring domestic situations in such an interesting way and then also bring to the fore quite controversial concepts and radical ideas. I found a very interesting marriage. So we did have a negative message which was from Lucy which said, I feel like I'm the only one who disliked this book. Often I struggle to understand protagonist decisions if they're not ones I would make

myself. And as someone who's heading into my perimenopausal territory, this book terrified me. And I felt that some of the sexual elements were pushing boundaries and trying to shock and sensationalize. Overall, two stars. I found that very interesting because I spoke about this when I first brought this book up, but one of my friends also really disliked this book for the very same reason that Lisa said at the top, which is she simply couldn't get behind the character's choices. And I find that quite an interesting way of reading and digesting art. And I wondered if that was something that either of you experience or how do you view your protagonist or characters

in a book? Do you moralize, do you judge or do you find it interesting when they stray or do things that you wouldn't do yourself? Or did you perhaps not find her actions that strange? I don't think I necessarily consume art in that way. I agree. And I've had discussions on this very thing with a few friends because I read and consume culture in a way that I am excited by people who do different things to me.

And I find that really compelling. I also find resonance with characters who do things that I would do as well. I think there's a place for all of them in the way that I enjoy film, TV, books, music, anything like that. So yeah, I definitely had this come up with a friend around Detransition Baby by Tory Peters, which I love that book, but they were talking about how they found the protagonist very problematic in a lot of issues when it came to their perception of motherhood and I guess their route to becoming a mother in the book. I don't know, I guess I didn't relate to that and that really surprised me, but that definitely obviously is a very common theme with people, whether it's reading books or I don't know, watching TV or even Sex and the City and the fact that

people hate Carrie Bradshaw and she's meant to be this problematic person. I guess that doesn't bother me at all. I kind of relish it. It's really interesting to see people, I think, read this book and then dislike it from a moral perspective of like, oh, well, she cheats. She makes horrible decisions. Therefore, the novel, you know, I find it difficult to enjoy it. Whereas I think, I find a lot of pleasure reading about a protagonist that I don't necessarily feel is at their moral best who is in danger of making life altering mistakes. As we all are, I think, you know, if you think of, I mean, the way that she describes Miranda

July describes life is just, this is the bit that sticks with me, I'm sure it's, if birth was being thrown energetically up into the air, we aged as we rose, at the height of our ascent we were middle-aged and then we fell for the rest of our lives. If you think of life like that, if you think of life as just this kind of arc, you're wading out into it, you're rising then you're falling, there is a lot of time to make quite bad decisions. A novel is not an instruction manual. Even if, as I think I did from this, learn something, glean something about a point of life that I'm not yet in, I think we should, where possible, try and appreciate books from a place of curiosity, rather than come to them loaded with baggage of, or an expectation that I'm going to like anyone

in this. This is a character that I would find so frustrating. I think her and her best friend, her best friend Jordi, have this codependent relationship where they constantly validate one another's decisions in a way that would drive me, bar me. But nonetheless, I really, I had such a fondness for her. I wanted to stay with her even after the end. And that I think witnessing through a book, someone who was so grappling with themselves who are making horrible decisions in the pursuit of happiness, that's relatable, even if you would never in your wildest dreams do a thing that she does. And I think that it's just a much more satisfying way to read it than, God, what a kook, you know, what a horrible bitch. Yeah. Can I read you one quote from Miranda July in her interview for the Women's Prize?

She speaks a little bit about the book and her choices and the best and more difficult parts of the book to write. But this bit I thought was amazing. She said, I was looking for this book, a super modern book that didn't describe this midlife crisis. Whenever people use that term it's always a joke. It's never said with a lot of empathy or faith in that person's process but aren't all crises transformative. The plan is to keep changing and not calcify. When I look around at people my age and someone is not going through some kind of upheaval I wonder if they're asleep at the wheel or it's happening inside and they're not showing it. It's unavoidable because you look ahead and instead of seeing middle-aged accomplishment and an open-ended hopeful space

you see death and that's not open-ended to the best of my knowledge right now. That's going to be a perspective shift and quite frankly, this is what my friends and I are talking about. And I thought that was amazing, this concept of everyone's going through upheaval in some form and this idea that, you know, yeah, midlife crisis is this really derogatory term. Even when it's applied to, you know, anyone, it's not a female, just a female derogatory term. I think even for men, it's like really kind of embarrassing to get that label. And I think kind for men it's like really kind of embarrassing to get that label. And I think kind of re-appropriating that and kind of seeing it through the lens of do we want to kind of fossilize ourselves in life or do we want to embrace the change and

the kind of messiness of constantly re-evaluating how do I want to live? How do I want to spend my life, regardless of if it's coming towards the end of my life or whether it's right at the beginning, constantly having that process of changing, driving ourselves forward, driving ourselves towards pleasure and joy. That quote you read from Miranda is exactly the kind of, the nugget that I wanted to touch on

in terms of why this book I found it so actually invigorating and weirdly comforting. It's something we spoke about when we spoke about Lily J's cut essay and we kind of ended up on a really long tangent around monogamy. We spoke about it with Baby Girl and Nicole Kidman's illicit affair with her employee. We spoke about it with Bridget Jones and her relationship with Rockstar. And I think what it is, is that thing about death, that thing about, for so much of a woman's life are, you know, actually we kind of speak about this in every episode, the thing that

we're prided on, the thing that we're valued for is our sexuality and our attractiveness. And then suddenly you hit middle age and you're completely devalued and you come invisible and somewhat women in pop culture and in media and in art, parts of certain age are not depicted. And if they are, it's drudgery, it's boring, it's whatever. And there's something very alive and subversive and exciting about women making quite immoral choices, especially as pertains to their desires and their sexual desires at an age when they're supposed to have expired in a verticommas. And as much as I find the idea of having an affair one of the most anxiety inducing things, luckily I can't physically have one because I've got no one to cheat on, but I still find it very stressful. There's something about reading about these women, having these really exciting

sexual experiences later in life on their own terms in a way that doesn't subscribe to the way that we're defined in our youth that I really enjoy. And it gives me some kind of solace that life is going gonna carry on being exciting and surprising. And the idea of monogamy, I find really fascinating anyway, as we got into before and I'm sure we can get into it again. But that story, the fact that the story continues, you keep going, that there's gonna be surprises.

It's not just gonna be, you're gonna reach all of these milestones, you're gonna get settled, you're gonna have two and a half kids, you're gonna have menopause and then you're just gonna see this kind of straight line B line towards death. The fact that there can be these really dramatic and maybe slightly wrong detours that you go on

brings me some kind of weird solace. I don't know if either of you agree with that. Well, we did have a message from Hannah who said, I'm actually excited for being post-menopausal now. And Lydia who said, loved vibrant and messy, too few books have women in their 40s at the heart. Felt so refreshing. I think that's it, isn't it?

And I mean, obviously this is about a particular kind of, she is a wealthy multi-hyphenate, I mean wealthy. I think they do pretty well, creative white woman in, is about a type of woman, which yes is representing the arts, but actually nowhere near to the point of, of men at this time of life. And I do think, not to believe in, you know, any trickle down economics of it, but this is a point of life we need to experience. We need to explore from every angle for every woman. And I think there are still

many, many people who think a woman seeking out the kind of sexual life she wants, whether it's via an affair or whether it's via leaving a husband or whether it's just going out there and shagging is more perverse than like a male serial killer. It's absolutely bizarre. We give men the leeway to explore and maintain sexual interest far later in their lives. It's a given. So I do think, as much as people saying, even in RTM say, it's not really revolutionary, something about it, it feels on that track. I don't think we have to say this is absolutely unheard of, but I think it's important in this time in this culture, especially as we watch the pendulum swing back to shutting women away,

making them very one note. Even a book about a middle-aged, financially secure, perimenopausal white woman, it's kind of enlightening. It feels like an echo and it feels like something quite subversive in a time where we're sort of buttoning up. And so that's what I wanted to say about that. I think it's a really interesting time to be discussing this book and I don't think we should discard it that easily. There are so many things I want to say. I agree with you. I think the idea that this isn't doing anything doesn't feel right, but also to call it radical maybe is a shade too far, but I think it definitely is on that path. And I found it very moving. I found it very powerful. I found it very empowered as well. And just so many notes

on it as well, just the fact that she explores the kind of three dimensional nature of what a relationship can be and how you can come back from something like having an emotional affair. The unnamed protagonist at one point looks like she is going to find this alternative route with her husband, even though they have come from the brink of miscommunication, complete stagnation with each other. She creates this third dimension for them to be in where it's almost role play.

They become different people and in doing so, they have a very groundbreaking conversation with each other. And I thought that was quite revolutionary, just even in the same way that baby girl shows the main character not being punished for her affair. And we don't see that very often. We see female protagonists, if they step out of line, they are punished. They lose their relationship, they lose their family. Society turns their back on them in some way in those stories. Is it crazy? No. Is it slightly subversive in a small way that is shocking and very pleasurable to watch because it shows life can be full of mistakes, but you don't have to be punished for it. Yes, I found even that small detail very moving. And even though

the marriage doesn't work, the fact that she goes on to find romance relationships elsewhere and sometimes those don't work out either. There's a second relationship after her marriage kind of changes and that's the thing, her marriage doesn't break down, they stay together, they're still married, they co-parent, but they choose to have alternative romantic relationships while still being married. And she has all of these other experiences. I found that so deeply moving because it can be about union and evolution of relationship while still maintaining family bond, while still maintaining that kind of love and closeness with somebody. And it felt like a lot more, it felt like a lot more what

queer communities have been doing for years where, you know, union, marriage, child rearing has all of these kinds of multi layers to it. But heterosexual relationships haven't been doing that. I feel like it is revolutionary to showcase that. And even though she is queer, I think having, you know, that kind of heterosexual dynamic with her husband and being able to have a platonic marriage is really interesting and is subversive. I agree. I want to come on to the ending again later, because I'm interested to know what you found of it, because that was again a point of contention for some people. But we had a message from Sia that said,

writing incredible, even better on audio book, sex scenes were uncomfortable there. And we had a couple of other messages about the shockiness of the sex scenes. And friend of the podcast, Livy, my friend, when I was reading it said, when you got to the period sex scene, I'm not gonna say anymore, but just tell me what you think.

And there is a scene where I think he, does he, the man that she ends up having an affair with, does he put her tampon in or take her tampon out or change it? Change it yeah and I messaged Livi back and I said I found that really quite erotic I thought it was really beautiful and really intimate and she went oh thank God me too because a lot of people found that really uncomfortable and I was quite interested by that because actually I found that really touching and yet very essential and yet that

has been a subject, a sore subject for a lot of people who found it a step too far, they found it gross. So I'm interested what you made of that. I mean, yeah, I've been reading, people really hated the sex scenes and I think we just need to grow up. I think we need to grow beyond that and understand erotic scenes in books and TV because they're typically actually really narrow and that does a lot of damage to people's sexual expectations. For a long time you've watched teen dramas and steamy stuff and you go, he'll touch me or the penis will enter, I'll achieve orgasm. We'll do some heavy breathing and then it'll

be done. And I think to go the other way and have quite, you know, realistic, people do strange things in the pursuit of erotic feeling. And a big part of why that is so erotic in her situation is because they have, they're not kissing, they are not having sex. What they're doing is everything but it feels very much like, you know, the worst person in the world where you can do nothing, when you can do like none of the,

you can't throw it in and have sex, what else do you do? And I think it's time to have more diverse sex scenes, even if they gross you out. I think to have the bit that I think people, I was on a Reddit thread and people were talking about, I think it's Jordi and her wife, they talk about how they have sex and it's like, they're clamped around each other like some kind of octopus creature. They're drooling, fingers in mouths, kind of humping at one another in this primal way. These middle-aged women doing that, you never read a description of that. You just don't. You might hear it from a friend, but it's just not the same as having this book, which everyone is reading. A day to day, this stuff is happening. We've got no shortage of conventional erotica. I just

can't imagine reading this and being like, oh, I wish it was a little bit more like Akatau or something. You know, I think, I think we'll live and I just think we can make room for this kind of sex. I agree. Just rip up the script and literally incinerate it and let's just like see what else sex scenes can look like. I think it is, I'd rather it be interesting and I'd rather it go there in places that other books, TV shows, films haven't done, than just keep repeating and regurgitating the same script of what sex looks like. It's just, I don't know, I don't think we have really explored all the different ways that people can have sex, especially when it's between a man and a woman.

You mentioned, Ritro, that you loved the ending because you loved that payoff of her not being punished, but I have read a lot of people being quite dissatisfied, in fact, quite dissatisfied that she ends up staying with her husband. And also there is that sadness, the tinge of sadness, when she finds out that the guy that she's been having this psychosexual affair with Davey

was like a fan of her art for years, and she has this kind of realisation that comes crashing down on her that maybe his attraction to her was actually purely built on the fact that he saw her as someone he admired rather than her being a still kind of like actively sexual being. And some people felt that then that married with her

not leaving her husband, the fact that her husband quite quickly finds a new girlfriend. A lot of people didn't like the ending. I actually don't think I did love the ending. I did read this book right at the beginning of the year, so I can't remember the exact details, but I do remember feeling like I loved the book a million percent right up until the end. And then I kind of felt like I didn't love the ending as much. What about you, Beth? I liked the ending. It wasn't one of those books where I was like, gosh, she's got to get this right. She's got to land it. It has to end in a way that I believe this unnamed

protagonist, who by the way, it was only upon doing the research for this that I realized she wasn't named. I don't know what that says about me, but anyway, I was like, what's her name? Oh, we never find out. I just had to believe that it's something that she would do. And I did. So I think I went into this book thinking, I'll learn from this book. I tried to read it like an instruction manual, basically. I'll be soothed by this, aging and menopause and perimenopause and marriage and parenthood. None of them will feel scary anymore. I'll receive wisdom from this older woman and I'll never dread them. And that didn't happen, of course, because that's not how life works and how books work. And if anything, I think there were points where my anxiety was heightened and then soothed. But anyway, at that end, I think to call it like resolution feels wrong. It felt very

much like the end of Fleabag. You know that she's sort of walking into the night, that nothing is solved forever. But broadly speaking, it justified my belief that everything sort of comes out in the wash, even when some things actually do just hurt forever. You are changed, you change other people. And there are glimmers forever of good things, beautiful things, if you're out looking for them, if you live a little bit longer, if you keep pushing ahead. And I just found that, I found it remarkable. I found it believable. I think that is what we get, whether we're 25, 45, 49 as we end the book with her. And so I find it really, really beautiful. So I kind of like the ending because the ending is a number of years have passed, I can't

remember. And then she sees Davy do a performance in New York, you know, it's a very kind of last minute thing, she turns up and she is stunned to see that so many women in the crowd are clearly caught in by his charm and he is incredible, he's an incredible performer. And she, although feeling slightly attracted to him, doesn't have that same kind of intense magnetic earth shattering pull towards him. And I think, and then also there's a reference to the fact that she's in a new relationship and maybe it's bi-coastal, transatlantic, something like that. So obviously she has this kind of very modern relationship that she's in that looks very different to the one she started out with. And also it feels

like it comes full circle because she has a realization that things are always changing, life is always changing, we're always changing, feelings are always, even if you feel stuck, even when she felt stuck in that kind of lust for Davey and it felt like so uncontrollable that she would never move forward. She has that experience with an older woman in the town

where they end up having unexpected sex and that kind of gives us some closure to the situation. It's just a reminder that even the highs and the lows, when they feel like they will never end, they just do. Life is constantly about evolution and I feel like I'm a broken record just saying the same thing but I found that quite powerful. Even though it wasn't the ending I necessarily wanted, I kind of wanted to feel like these two people who'd connected were soulmates.

They were, you know, each other's person, but it's not, it's not really about that. The book's not about that. It's not about him. It's all about her and what she's doing and what she's feeling and her life and what she wants for herself. Yeah. I think, I think you're right. That is a really good,

like you can't have things tied up in a bow. I've completely forgot about that bit in the book where she sleeps with that older woman. And what I found so interesting about her, because someone was like, I didn't find it empowering at all. I didn't think it was liberating. Someone else said it was overhyped.

But I think what was so interesting about her as a character was, yes, she was kind of committing all of these betrayals, but she was also constantly having such interesting human experiences, which are based on desire, which I think so often we are taught to temper and especially when we get to that age. And on a separate note, we had a really good message from Kara who said, I read this in my book club and it was a lot less about motherhood than I thought it would be. Only one of our group

actually is a mother. And I think she took away a different perspective than the rest of us, half partnered, half not. I almost felt like parenthood was a relevant environmental factor more than an identity, which was a refreshing departure from the mum life obsessed internet. I love the writing itself but her character is so polarizing. And I loved that bit about motherhood. I thought that was so true and such an interesting point of motherhood is so central because she really struggles. They have this bit at the beginning where they don't know if their child's going to make it. And it's really complicated. So she definitely loves being a mother.

She definitely loves her child. But there is a departure from this sort of like helicopter parenting, motherhood as an identity. And another thread that there's so many parts of this book that get a lot of outrage but one big thing as well was the fact that she decided not to gender her child, the child is non-binary. That is not something I've read in a book and the child is very young as well and I thought that was really interesting. But when I was reading it, I have to say I kept getting confused reading it, I kept forgetting that they weren't gendered. I thought that was a really forward thinking thing, but this very much, I have another friend who did it in a book club and apparently everyone was quite up in arms about this. They just couldn't get behind it.

No, no. What is there to get up in arms about? Exactly. I kind of get, it's an adjustment if you've not read a book like that, but you just, you adjust, you know, it doesn't get confusing after a while. I think, I don't know. I think it's like the auto fiction question, isn't it? Because people, I know, it doesn't get confusing after a while. I think, I don't know, I think it's like the auto fiction question, isn't it? Because people, I mean, even reading this, I was like, what parts of Miranda? Because Miranda July has a child who's non-binary. A lot of the things, you know, had a similar marriage situation is also like a multi-artist. And I think if you're putting real, you know, this is a realistic thing. This is a lot of children's realities, you know, having parents who are totally unfazed by their identity and their gender markers and their

pronouns. And I think then if you're reading that and sort of lagging behind, I think you as the reader have to go, okay, I'm the one who has to do the catching up here, not the adjustments. The other end, talking of quite frustrating reads of this, I was on, I think I mentioned earlier, I was on a Reddit thread and people were reading the book wrong. I mean, I know that I shouldn't say that, but they were. They were saying things like, okay, one of the most frustrating things about this, so one, it was all the stuff about, oh, she's a bad woman. Why would I ever trust her? Some people were saying that they'd been recommended the book on a podcast and as such judged the podcast host because obviously they're bad

people. The thing that really frustrated me and this is when I had to close it, was someone said that having a scene where a seven-year-old child bathes with their mother in the same book as all the sex scenes that we have is kind of like having a childcare room in a sex club. And I just thought, I am getting stupid at reading this. So unbelievably stupid, because I read this and none of that seemed, it didn't stand out to me that there was a non-binary child. It didn't stand out to me that you'd read about motherhood and then you'd read about fucking and they were having sex while the baby was on the bed. I just thought, I'm

not the most, I mean, actually I'm quite a liberal person, but you know, I just have never considered that this is not all quite medium normal stuff. I think I'm quite shocked by hearing these things. That is just, I literally want to slap my head across the wall. Oh God. I was just about to say before you said that, that I found the scenes of them bathing together so touching and so moving, and the descriptions that she has about motherhood, and this desire to almost have her child still be a part of her, still be inside her, and just for them to be connected, to be the same cells again. you know, the same cells again.

I found that so deeply powerful in a way that I've spoken about. I, you know, I feel kind of confused, maybe slightly ambivalent about motherhood and that really got me. It really made me feel so, ah, just so emotional about the concept of having a child and loving a child that deeply that that's what you feel. And you know, the bathing scenes,

I especially found really, really moving. So to hear that is just so bizarre to me. I find that so gross actually. And we've said it before, but when people act in weird ways about, you know, mothers being naked with their children, all of that kind of stuff, the person finding it weird is really telling on themselves because what are you imagining sir or young lady or miss or whatever madam because I'm not imagining anything weird. I'm imagining a loving parent and child. That's all I'm thinking of. I mean, obviously bad things do happen to children and adults can have horrible and nefarious views towards like young people.

So I think some of it comes from a protectionist point of view, but we've spoken about this before, there's this overcorrection. And I also think culturally, especially in the UK, we're so prudish and strange about tactileness and showing love that in other cultures is different and kind of related to this, a bit like what you're saying about, I found those scenes really touching as well, Ruchira. And I posted a really cringe reel the other day about sometimes I take a picture of myself and I see my mom and genuinely sometimes I look in the mirror and I see my mom. And when I posted that reel the other day, I was thinking about how weird it is because as I got older, I looked like her and I started thinking about

the fact that she literally grew me in her body. And I think it's sometimes my sister when I watched her with her young babies, because she's still like, so connected in that kind of like, they're so little. And it's wild, the idea that we want to separate mothers from these things that spent nine months going inside their wombs. Like, I think sometimes we forget how transcendental it is to grow a human inside your body and how connected you forever are. And when I see my mum in me, I'm literally like, I'm a product of this woman. Like I have grown in her womb. And I think it's really sad that we culturally have moved away, like, and separated that allowance for kind of parents to be parents to their children. And there was a thread the other day where a girl tweeted something really sweet about how

she was feeling upset or something happened. She fell asleep cuddling her dad. And it was just a really innocent tweet. And people were going off. She was, I think she was like in her teens or twenties and people were really cross about it. And she was like, he's my dad. Like we were just lying in bed and we fell asleep. And actually that's so sweet and so normal, but we do have these, it makes me think of like the David Beckham kissing thing. And we have such funny things about parents and children. And I think that's actually a real negative in society and it bleeds into all the other things we talk about, especially with that young boys and stuff.

I think if we were more tactile with our children, more close to them, more willing to appreciate the fact that we are connected, if you have a good relationship with your parents, obviously, and if you are able to, I think that would be really formative and helpful in society rather than this kind of strange over-sexualization of any touching or tact on this or show of love or yeah.

It's porn brain, I think. I think it is. It's the creep of porn brain on the internet. I mean, we know now we can't share those nice things on Twitter. It's accessible now. And also like, I think on the note of this bond between mother and child, it is important to note that she had a traumatic birth. The baby almost died of this FMH, fetal maternal hemorrhage, which as we find out, so few babies survive this that actually all the forums are about stillborn babies. So I think it's a story about trauma and birth and I just can't imagine reading it any other way and I think that was one of the bits in it that I thought, oh, I'd really like to discuss this with a parent because it is a really, I felt very admiring of motherhood.

It felt very distinctly, you know, motherhood was quite celebrated. It felt quite aspirational that even as the marriage is sort of severing her into different personas, she loves to be a parent. This gives her a lot. It is labor, it is work, but it's beautiful. It felt very much like very distinct from, you know, other books and other pieces of text that we have discussed in recent months. I mean, whenever we discuss motherhood, we do invariably get a message or two from a mother who perhaps isn't very happy with what we've said because we're three child-free women at present, so we can't always get it right. But I think this felt very different

than say a night bitch or I try and think of the other things we discussed. This felt very admiring. And yeah, I don't know, I just, I thought, oh God, I don't really have any mothers to discuss this with, but I was really hoping that one would message in. So I'm glad that we got those messages from people being like, I read this with parents. Thank you so much for listening this week and for all of your opinions and takes on

all fours. We love being in conversation with you all and if you like book club do let us know and let us know any other books that you'd like us to discuss in the future. Remember to give us a follow on Instagram and TikTok at everythingiscontentpod and at EICpod on X. We also love, love, love the reviews we've been getting. So please consider giving us a lovely review if you haven't already. It makes us continue to do this podcast, which we love to do.

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