Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - All Fours by Miranda July with Annie Macmanus

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

This week's book guest is All Fours by Miranda July.Sara and Cariad are joined by renowned podcaster, DJ and best-selling author Annie Macmanus to discuss hotel rooms, dancing, window cleaners, menopause, parking and Davina McCall.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss birth trauma.Hear Annie speak with author Miranda July on her hit podcast Changes.You can find Annie on Instagram and Twitter: @anniemacmanusAnnie's latest novel 'The Mess We're In' is available to buy hereAll Fours by Miranda July is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but it doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdos Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is All Fours by Miranda July. What's it about? It's the sexual and emotional safari of a 45-year-old artist. What qualifies it for the weirdos book club? Well, the narrator is quite the odd ball. In this episode, we discuss hotel rooms, dancing, window cleaners, menopause, parking and Davina McCall. And joining us this week,

is Annie McManus. Annie is a podcaster, DJ and author. She has written two incredible books, Mother, which was a Sunday Times bestseller, and her most recent book, The Mess We're In, which fuses her love of music, Ireland and London, acting as a love letter to the Irish diaspora. The novel explores family tensions,

a formative move to a new city, and the sometimes suffocating intimacy of female friendships. It's fantastic read, and both of her books are available in paperback now. Trigger warning, in this episode we discuss birth trauma. Annie Mac in the house. This is how we introduce people. We go, we just shout at their name at the moment.

Annie Mac. I feel like we can with Annie Mac. She's actually called DJ. You can just show at me. That's how I was shouting. I was shouting like I was in the crowd, my arms in the air. And you've just put on tape that, which no one was expecting. And it's just for me.

Have you ever played, take that? Never forget. No. Okay. But never forget is a bop. If you ever do, I'll be there. Annie Mac, I'll say. Yeah, I've actually been to, I've just literally forgotten what they're called.

Your late night. Oh, before midnight. Before midnight, yes. Before midnight, yes. No way. Yeah, yeah, with my friend. Roundhouse. Oh, cool.

Oh, it was amazing. Was it good? It was amazing. I'm so glad. It was amazing. I'm so relieved. But that's why I, but that's why I know

there was no take that. It's a proper club night. It's a club. I was guessing. I mean, you can have a proper club night would take that. You absolutely can. I just want people to think that's the vibe.

I'm sure, because at the end of before midnight, it does get a bit wedding. Like, at the end, you go every, like the last half hour goes everywhere. So I probably could get away would never forget.

Yeah. And it would probably go off. I've had a word, you know. Sadly. They'd be crowd surfing and all sorts. Back in the... I mean, this is a long time ago when we were at college, but a Ministry of Sound always used to play S Club 7 at the end.

Really? Yeah. We reached for the stars. But that was a student night. Was it to get people to leave. No, it was to get people to leave. Oh, right. They used to do that where...

You know, they used to play that track from Bugsie Malone. Oh, yes. That's how they got everyone to leave the club. Yeah. But that's when the dweaves, like us from the drama club were like... That's your moment to shine. Batsy Malone. It was a routine.

We were happy about it. We're so excited you're here. Really excited. I'm very excited to be here. I've been very excited about this in the distance this episode. I've been excited. I love this podcast. It's so wonderful.

Like as a book lover and as also someone who feels like an interloper in the world of publishing and writing and who can't even call herself an author with, well, I have never done it actually. I'm thinking of the third person right now. What's going on? But like I feel like listening. to this, like it's a kind of warm hug of like people who are on my level when it comes to just loving books and being fans of books, but aren't the same typical, how can I say this? Voices one here is when it comes to gatekeeping and book and talking about books in the world of books.

It's very easy to be intimidated, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But that's very nice because I was about to say, how do we even describe any, Matt, because you are a writer, your second novel, that's right? The mess we're in. Sunday Times bestseller. Pretty pretty good. But also I'd be like, you're definitely an author.

It's too late. But you find it difficult to describe yourself this one. I would call myself a writer. I'd say I write books, which makes you an author. Even saying I write novels, feels a bit. Yeah. I'd say I'd write books. It'd be great if you won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Still sort of shrugging and going, oh yeah, I type the odd thing. It's no biggie. I've got a couple of word documents on the go. But we're not talking about one of your books today. We're talking about all fours by Miranda July, which is out now. This was very exciting. Are you already a fan of Miranda July?

Had you already knew her work when you read this? Yeah, so I knew of her. Yeah, because you got similar hair. Because she was similar hair. But I knew of her, and I knew, like, vaguely that she was a kind of New York, I thought she was New York artist. And I kind of put her in the same realm as people like Chloe Savignee. Yeah, yeah.

Cool. Really cool. Yeah. really kind of alt. Yeah. Carrey Brownstein. Artie types. Amazing fashion. Like, you know. But I didn't know her as a writer.

Slash author. Slash author. And then my friend who is an author and who lived in New York for a very long time told me that I needed to read this book. She said, everyone who I know in New York is reading this book. Everyone's talking about it. You must read this book and you must interview her for your podcast. I was like, all right, okay, we better get the book.

So I got the book. Read it. and was astonished. And then I... Astonish is the only word. I saw on Instagram. Sam Baker was reading the books. And you had commented that you...

I've spoken to Sam about it. And then that's how Carrie had and I thought, we must get Annie Mack on the podcast to talk about this book. Because we like it when we're like, they're already reading it. Yes. So we don't have to scare someone. They're like... They're already keen.

They're already reading it. We don't have to give them homework. They've done their homework already. Yeah. Melbourne Comedy Festival about eight or nine years ago, David O'Dockti. got me a copy of Miranda July's short stories. Nobody belongs here more than you

and said you will really love this writer. And that was about two years before Miranda July's first novel came out, the first bad man. Yes. So I'm a long time fan of her writing. Right. Yeah. And what about your character?

I knew her more from like filmmaking and art world. Oh, yeah, you like films. But her films. Yeah. But I didn't know, I think I have read the short stories because we definitely talk, but again, I was aware. And I also, one of those people I follow on Instagram. Yes.

because she's amazing and interesting and makes social media feel like she dances in tights well doesn't she just readers of the novel to be discussed to be discussed yes so this is her second novel yeah because she had the short stories before I don't I don't even

I've never put quite so many notes in the book like and they are yes they're specialist moon in stickers from Japan so in terms of themes oh my god should we start with talking about her depiction of marriage Can I, yeah, I want to start with what, like, I, to me, is like the boldest start to this book or any book. When she's talking about her relationship with her husband, and she says,

Harris and I are more formal, like two diplomats who aren't sure if the other one has poisoned our drink, forever thirsty, but forever wanting the other one to take the first sip. You go, no, you go ahead. No, please, after you. This sort of walking on eggshells might sound stressful, but I was pretty sure we would have the last laugh. Yeah. I was like, fuck. that's page four

that she's giving you that and that's the book is full of all these incredibly casually seemingly casually written but incredibly profound things it's almost Oscar Wilde-esque in this kind of like witty bon mot about like relationships and friendships

and mid-life yeah mid-life I messaged all of my plus 40 women who are artists who are also mothers who try and write and was like you have to read this book which I guess is what your friend had as well Like, if you are trying to balance life, this is a book for you.

I thought that very similarly was what I really loved was how she was reflecting on just the inherent biological sexism of, you know, if you are the woman in a heterosexual relationship. And I love this phrase. And how infuriating to be the wife and not other women who could enjoy how terrific he was. How painful for both of us, especially given that we were modern creative types used to living in now dreams of the future. but a baby exists only in the present, the historical, geographic, economic present. With a baby, one could no longer be cute and coy about capitalism. Money was time, time was everything.

I literally have that exact quote. Look, I typed out the same quote. It's so massive. It's such a massively astute thing to say. Yeah. And it's such an unsolvable struggle. Yeah. Yeah.

So a woman, the character, talking from a position of liking her husband, who is a great guy, and she can see to the outside world, he's a great guy. But having this sort of subtle dance of time and availability and managing it around work. We should say I, well, you have recently interviewed her, but it feels very close to life. The story is an artist, performance artist, what we don't quite know.

And she lives with this other artist, Harris, and they have their gender neutral child, Sam. And they live in L.A. And the book starts with, like, her establishing their life, and she has to go, she's supposed to go to New York for some kind of event, isn't she? Yes. Her husband has said this thing about how they were parkers and drivers. There are two kinds of people. And I don't drive, so I'm neither of those people.

And I didn't quite understand the real distinction between them, apart from... So I think the driving is the someone who is very good at long distance and is kind of calmer and less needing of praise and attention. Yeah, right. the parker because they're doing this kind of manipulating their car into a space, everything needs to be kind of rewarded and it's like, oh, look at that maneuver. So the park is- the driver is a much more positive description. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's like someone saying,

you're super needy drama queen and you only deal in short term. Yes. And everyone has to say, well done, you're a performer. Or you're the cool person who like get stuff done and doesn't need someone to say well done because you're long-term thinking and you're like, you're more likely to be a writer, a director, like that kind. It's like, it's almost like what you'd say to an actor like you need someone to say well done but i the director just get on with things yeah so if you're just driving how's if the car isn't parked you know it's dangerous you have to stop at some point well that's what she says she says the parkers are actually good in a case of emergency yeah exactly they love they love the drama and you know being the one to save the day yeah so she is a parker

and she knows very well that she's a parker but she wants to but the driving to new york plan all comes from her trying to sort of prove or improve. Yeah. He says you could drive to New York. Her first reaction is like, no way. And then she's like, yeah, I'll show you. I will drive to New York. So she makes this plan to drive to New York.

I think it's not a spoiler to say. That's the beginning of the book, isn't it? But it doesn't happen. But the book starts with this whole thing that she's contacted by a neighbor saying that someone's taken telephotography. Someone's been taking photographs with a long lens camera of her. And her reaction to that is just so visceral and exciting. and she has a masturbate imagining the man taking photos of her from a distance. I thought like a really telling bit about her as a thing because you really like it's a mad book

because you have this like the quote you just gave. There's big huge universal themes of being a woman in midlife and all the things you have to confront. But then there's also this kind of mad insight into her interior world. And one of my favorite bits that just that show that is when she's on the phone to her neighbor who's an FBI agent. Oh yeah. And they're talking and they have this big long. silence and in any other world like a silence is automatically

construed as awkward but she like literally sinks into it and she's like how long can we have this moment of intimacy with like two of us breathing down the phone at each other to me that's like everyone else would be fill fill fill the silence and she was like let's let it go I know that things she does do things that are odd

she's quite it'll be deemed as art she finds art and things yeah everything describing a silence and obviously as a reader you don't really know how long it was. Yeah. But it's being described as sort of incredibly, incredibly long minutes. Yeah.

With the silence with a stranger. But the way that her mind constructs it becomes this incredible thing. It's love as well. Another bit that caught my when she's saying, don't be Buzz Aldrin. Don't talk about the moon. Like, ask everyone how their day was. She's coming home from work. As in Buzz Aldrin getting off the moon and having to come in and unload the dishwasher.

That's her coming home from the studio. She's like, I have to just get back into their zone. Yeah. And aware that her, they're aware that she's a kook and other people aren't having. That's what I thought I liked about this character because you can be super arty and not in this world. And it's kind of like, okay, what about who's taking the bins out? But I feel like she's being dragged into domesticity and forced to deal with the bins and the dishwasher due to her love of her child and her husband. So you feel this tension right from the beginning that this person is like, I'm not meant to be here.

I'm supposed to be somewhere else, but I love this child so much. The child is depicted. I think this is a really interesting thing because so much of the book, I mean, for me, when I read it, it made me question every decision I've ever made with regards to social conditioning, marriage, heteronormitivity, all of that. And the child is what keeps a heterosexual marriage in place. So that is the line between the woman a lot of the time having to be at home and the man working. And that's the thing that kind of makes it all.

or click into the rigid, the very rigid form that it is. And it makes you question the form. And that's what she does in this book. She makes you question everything. Because the way her mind works, as you said, it's so artful. She asks these massive questions of things that you don't ever, or haven't ever, I haven't, asked of myself, of my relationships, my anything, the way I look at myself in the world. It's quite confronting.

There were bits when I was like, Miranda, I just want you to stop. And that's why all the women are passing it to each other. Because I read an interview with her in The Observer. And the very last line is like, basically I want to show people that it doesn't, you know, you can build the world that you want to build for yourself. Can we Miranda? Who's taking the bins after? It doesn't have to be this way. Yeah.

I think. And then every woman in midlife is like, oh. I think that's absolutely true. And this is not dismissing it. But if your money situation is okay. Yeah, true. You have to have to earn your own money from your job. And especially if it's a job that's flexible time-wise.

And she also admits... There's so much more freedom to discuss these things. She gets paid crazy money for weird things. The character does, yes. Yes, the character is talking about strange things that get bought from five years ago and now she's suddenly got $20,000. And that's it. So we were reading about a person who is...

I mean, we would use the term like privilege, but I'm not using it in an insulting way. No. I'm using an exciting way because she has then time to reflect on these things and analyze them and reject them if she wants to. Like, she can leave her husband. It's a choice to be there. It's not a story about one who is stuck.

She can afford the rent on an entire other building that is her studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's going to stay this incredibly expensive hotel. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and she has previously stayed in such incredible hotels. She feels she's been ruined. Yeah. I've been to that hotel in Paris. I haven't stayed there.

I went for dinner and I was like, she's right. I still think of that hotel because it's just, yeah, it is incredible. But I think what I love about this character and what we should discuss, is this a character? Because I felt like I was reading Miranda July's life. Early on, she describes herself on a dance floor, looking at her husband. And the way she describes it is how she dances on Instagram. Yes, exactly.

So I was like, but I do love, I love people like this who do question everything. And it's not even like they do the normal thing, go, hang on a minute. They just can't. It's like their whole body rejects normality from an early age. And then I went on a Google hole as I always do about like her life and how long she, And like, you know, from like 15, 16, 17, 17, she was making films and going off and doing it. And I was like, some people just will never fit in a box, never have, never will. Which is why I think it's interesting, like you said, that the child and the marriage has, it seems like that's first time in her life, she's had to somehow fit a box.

Yes. She's never done that before. Whereas I think most of us are in the box already fulfilling the things we think we're supposed to do. So the fetal maternal, um, oh, yes. So the character in this book. has an incredibly distressing birth trauma. Yeah. Through the umbilical cord,

the mother starts to reabsorb the baby's blood. And it ends mostly in stillborn. Is that something happened to Miranda July? I didn't find anything on that. Yeah. So I wasn't sure, but I wondered as a reader, which should you do that? Should you just leave art to itself?

That's the problem with something being autobiographical, is that then you wonder about everything. Not so much like, oh, did she have this kind of sex or did she fancy someone in this way? Because I assume an author has had emotional experiences and that's what they're... They're, you know, they're still going through it. But I thought to be able to step outside the character,

steps outside the relationship and is aware of like this fundamentally changed us, linked us, pondered us, but also stopped us quite being this sexy couple that we were because we were faced with death so vividly. So I thought that was, yeah, amazing writing, amazing writing. I don't know if you guys noticed. It took me a while to notice, but the... The main character does not have a name. Well, I'm just wondering as we're talking,

I don't want to sound like an idiot. I've forgotten her name. She doesn't have a name. But that is a deliberate move on her part because she was aware that everybody would compare her personal life to the characters. And she thought for once she would lean into that and allow people to use her if they want as a vehicle for their projection of who that is. She's already thought of the things we're thinking.

Oh my God. She's so amazing. But I think then that she's had to then have a reckoning of sorts. in that talking about the book is essentially talking about herself. But yeah, she's 45 in the book, and she sleeps in separate beds to her husband. And that's you? Both of these me. Really?

Yeah. And I was like, when I was reading it, I was like, oh, God, here we go. This is like, this is some sort of sign because my husband snores terribly and I'm a really light sleeper. We don't often sleep. It's just like practical. So I'm about 1043 and I want my husband to move to a different bed. So this is what I'm aspirational for. This is aspirational of, yeah.

Yeah. So how did you get him to move? Or did you move? Well, I move or he moves. Depends. I don't know who kicks. We always start in the bed together. Yeah, yeah. And then one of us moves. One of us. He's either kicked out or I go. What she was depicting, because I said it to my husband. I was like, oh, they sleep in separate bed. And he was like, that's not like, that's common. Lots of people do that. And I was like, no, but what I'm picking up on is like, she has her completely own boudoir. And he has his, like, man powers. It's not like, we start in the same bed and then.

someone goes and sleeps in a spare room, it's like, she sounds like she's got this amazing bedroom that's hers. And it sounds, made me feel like a teenager again. Like, that's entirely her bedroom. One of the terrible things about being straight is you have to share things with a gross man. Yeah. And my husband's massive. Yeah, he's really, yeah. I thought this really amazing big bed that both the kids can fit in and Steens in it is ruined. Yeah. But again, this is about a freshness of portrayal. Yeah. Because we were taught, or implicitly, and explicitly, growing up,

that it was failed marriages, as in sexless, as in you don't love each other anymore, have affection, separate beds. Yeah. Rather than sleep is precious, personal time is precious.

Yeah. Presence is precious. Yeah, it could be even sexier to be, hi, good morning, and I still like you. Yeah, because I haven't heard you snoring.

One of my favorite quotes where she said, sometimes I could hear Harris's dick whistling impatiently, like a tea kettle, at higher and higher pictures until finally I couldn't take it and so I initiated it.

I was like, but she said it so eloquently. But you must, it's, it needs to be remarked on how funny this book is. It's funny. It's really funny. So, so funny. Yeah, there was lots of it that I was like just laughing my head of. I loved about the description of marital sex. And obviously it's a very, very sexual. Yes, we should say.

Because it's about life and life has a lot of sex in it. So this is marital sex. After San Fad asleep, I forced myself to walk into Harris's bedroom in nothing but high heels. The heels helped me just do it, like ripping off a band-aid. Once I mutated, from intrinsically and eternally alone to sucking on another person's body, our weekly sex felt great. And by the time

Harris was giving me my fourth orgasm, I was sex's biggest fan, a total convert. Sex is essential for a healthy relationship, exclamation mark. But after the afterglow, I withdrew into my native state and got started on dreading the next time, which wouldn't be for two and a half weeks. Oh, God. It's

so real. She writes about things. I think that's it. She's just talking directly to you. And very healthily, though. But it does feel like you feel a bit naked. Because it's that feeling of like she's saying this like Empress New Closings. We're like, what? You don't say.

That's a lot to say, Miranda. Should we all, I thought we didn't say these things. Like, yeah. It just feels like it's just when someone has pondered on something for longer. Yeah. And then it's that cliche of going, oh, I didn't even know I knew that. Yes. I didn't even know I felt that.

Yes. And so if you look at all the way she's talking about sex and marriage, and then later on in the book, she basically does, well, inspired by this Amish thing that teenagers too, a rumspringer, which is this sense, it's like a gap year in your marriage. Yeah. You just fuck off and, you know, I think that that will inspire an entire generation of midlife women to go and explore or have Wednesday nights off marriage. Yeah. Yeah. Wednesday nights off. Yeah. And it's funny, isn't it? She's talking to friends about it. And you sort of see the different reactions as well. Like she does bring friends in mostly female friends, I think, to say like, you know, what do you, this is what I'm doing. And the different, like some of them being like, oh no, no, no, no, I can't handle what you're doing. And others being like, well, we're actually already doing something far more avant-garde. Right at the beginning, so before that's happened, she's asking people about their sex lives. So she's sort of reflecting on herself and Harris. And then she asks, her friend Jordy. And again, so I loved so much her description of Georgie's sex. There's this

very visceral description of them sort of having each other's fists in each of this mouse. She's just drooling, because it's just so animal. And so she has this idea of sort of like full-bodied. Georgie's her best friend, doesn't it? Yeah. And then she has this devastating sentence, which was a, sorry, I'll just grab it for you. I was quiet now, bludgeoned by this vision of intimacy it wasn't a matter of having lost at this conversation I had lost at life because when she's described her sex life I mean it's pretty good

it's high heels and four orgasms we've just heard about it she's absolutely doing fantastic until her best friend who describes something which is just so sort of physically present and mutually obsessed and it's the intimacy as well isn't it she seems obsessed with this idea of

feeling alive and I think that's interesting coming back to the parking, driving. It's like, Harris is denigrating it slightly but you need approval, but she's like, I need to feel like we did something. It was real rather than just driving

on a long stretch of road. And that's, I thought it's really interesting because partly at the beginning you do think, I don't know how compatible these people are. Like, even though there's this deep respect

and this deep loyalty, loyalty from trauma and also love, you do start thinking, maybe you guys shouldn't. Like, it does feel like you're not, Yeah, there's a... But intimacy is a huge part of the book, isn't it? Yeah.

It feels like her as an artist and as a mind is that's all... She's just craving intimacy. She just wants to understand how other people feel in the world. That feels like her whole schick. Yeah. It's just like that kind of need for connection, need to feel what other people feel. Hello, I am Annie MacManus and I host the podcast Changes. With guests like Idris Elba, Zadie Smith and Louis Theroux,

I find out about the biggest changes in each guest's life, as well as speaking to guests who you will know and love. I also speak to people who simply have fascinating stories of change. The topics are vast from ADHD to heartbreak, war to motherhood, but at the root of them all is change. Just search for changes with Annie McManus, wherever you get your podcasts. There's a bit where she describes how it feels to come home when you've been free. Because again, it's like if you are,

a creative person and you go and do these creative things and then you have to come back and just be like a mum and she hides because she doesn't want to be found by them. She's in the basement. And then it's like, they think it's a game, but she's like, she's sort of like, they knew I was home but where was I? How much longer could I stay down here without it being hard to explain? Not much longer. I was crouched between my suitcases and a mini trampoline on its side. I wasn't dead, but I was too much a soul. I had weighted things too heavily in the direction. direction of music and poetry and my spirit thusly animated had come to think of itself as a full person. It did not understand how misshapen I was. Oh, God. I think she, the reason she's such

a good writer is like, it's not down on any side. Like she said she's just telling you. There's no judgment cast. Yeah, there's no judgment. Because you get a sense of how unbelievably frustrating it must be to be in a house with her. Yes. Oh my gosh. She's not, she's not kind of like advocating for herself. I think she has an awareness of her own oddities within that domestic sphere. So you kind of feel for everyone in the book. Yeah. And there was definitely a point I would say three quarters way through what I was like, what are you doing? I got annoyed. When she's doing the hotel room, you're like, what? Yeah. Is you literally like just throwing money away? So did it bother you the financial outlay? Yeah. I found it like, I was just like, I was completely just,

couldn't get my head around, why. But then she was good at kind of explaining it, like beauty for beauty's sake. So this is artistic temperament of like everything just for beauty. And beauty is worthwhile and worth and valuable. So it was good because I've never looked at the world that way before. As in beauty being something worth spending 20 grand. It's a lot of money. So what I struggled with, it wasn't the financial outlay. It was they're not going to keep it. Yes. Actually, I think of beautiful things, especially if your money has paid for them. You want to be true. leaving them at a motel. Yeah.

The tiles, the towels even. Not packing everything away in your suitcase. She didn't even take the bedspread. I know. This vintage bed spread. That's for me is when I go, that's what I mean. I understand spending. I don't understand that it's not keeping.

Yeah. I feel like it's categories of artists. And I'm always very aware of like, I am an artist. And then I am actually quite a practical person. Yeah. And like when she was doing that, I was like, yeah, not for me. I definitely couldn't, I definitely couldn't piss 20 grand away on a hotel room for the sake of our, I would be, no, like, no, I can't do it. And I just feel like some people

live in a different plane of existence. And when I read that, I was like, she exists somewhere else. I think that's why we're readers. Yeah. I think I want to open the pages and sort of imagine living that way, but not definitely, I can't actually do it. In the world, that, yeah. So one of the things that I really related to was her trying to explore midlife and menopause and what it means to be menopausal and perimenopausal. So she asks loads of people, she finds this graph that basically depicts a cliff, which explains the front cover of the book, this sense of one's sexual desire plummeting off the edge of a cliff at a certain age, yeah, of women in women.

This is not the case for every single person, but this is what she saw in this graph and presumed for herself. And then she had this panic situation where she's like, I haven't done all the things that I want to do with regards to sex? And what if my desire is gone and I don't want to do them? So she has this sense of urgency where she must go and explore all of her sexual desires before it's too late and her desire has fallen off a cliff. Yes, thus Davy.

Yes, yeah. She drives to New York and pumps into someone at a petrol station. Who works for a rent-a-ts. It works for a rental car. And he washes her window screen. And they stare at each other for an awkward amount of time. Intimacy. Again.

Yeah. And she's not sure. She thinks he can't see her, so she's staring at him. But they're actually looking to each other's eyes. Yeah. As he, like, wipes the windscreen. And he couldn't even call it an affair. Could you?

Like, a strange personal... You would call it an affair if he was your husband. He was much, much younger than her. Yeah. And this sort of... A dancer. A dancer. This kind of weird relationship develops between them.

I mean, I thought it was brilliant writing. Oh, totally. But then I also wondered, did she do it? I was like, but actually, did you go and do this? Because this feels so... Well, there's no way that someone hasn't taken her tampon out for her.

Because to spend that long, I forgot about the tampon completely. Oh my God. I've never read anything. I thought so much Clary is going to love this. Not because I'm into people taking my tampon up. I'm into people talking about tampons.

Because it was a non-sexual infatuation. Yes. And that was incredible. And that wasn't a moral decision. It wasn't someone going, oh, we did everything but. Yeah. It wasn't about moral ambiguity.

It was about, you know, I understood why there were boundaries for the David character, who's sort of newlywed and, you know, family's future for him. Yeah. She grabs his piss when he's pissing. Yes. And sort of just puts her hands in it, not because it's arousing, but she wants to feel him. And then removes and inserts a tampon for her. Yeah.

And this is all done, described as kind of really, really, like, glacially slowly. Yeah. Everything happens so slowly and carefully. Yeah. And they're both kind of, like, they're both kind of not sexually into it. It's not like, you know, he's not like, oh, yeah, I want to take your time, panic. They're both like, oh, interesting. Because it's more, it's more important.

Yeah. And they're sort of like discovering very slowly of like, yeah, what is another body? How does it work? And it's described as this will always be our thing. Yeah. Because it's so much further than you would go with a lover. Yeah. Yeah.

The thing, again, I really love about her writing is it would be, if I, you know, we tell you that plot and you haven't read the book, but he's like, oh. oh my God, this woman's mad. But she keeps sort of internally thinking, this is weird. Like the dance, when she starts dancing and she can't bear to look at him because she sort of thinks it might be terrible.

And she's doing a terrible dance. And I love that, again, that awareness she brings of like, this is kind of embarrassing. But actually, I'm just going to see what happens. I think all of us normally feel the embarrassment and then we'd like shut down that situation because it's so mortifying that a man is dancing for you

in a hotel room that you've redecorated. I think we'd always. be like, I have to go home. This is mad. One of the bits I really loved was when she, and I don't know if it's a spoiler to say, but when she basically ends up sleeping, this is after, she takes a girlfriend, but after that, she ends up sleeping with an older woman. That bit was incredible.

And it's so good because it exposes her and all of our internalized ageism. So there's a sense of her kind of feeling sorry for her and being like, well, I better please her and, you know, give her a good time. And then the older woman is just like getting up and walks out and leaves her. And she's like, oh, did you not? Would you? Yeah. And the older woman was like, I do this all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. I've got a massive bed. Exactly that big round bed. So I'm being very judgmental of another woman based on what we think of in society of attractiveness. Yeah. And then unlearning it through this amazing character who doesn't want them. Yeah.

Because they're broken. But doesn't want them. But also like has a really rich sex life. Yeah. And is all the things that Miranda in the boy, the narrator feels like she won't be as an older woman. So there's a huge sense throughout the book of her just, this kind of the second half of her life.

So she's 45, she's halfway to 90. She's at the beginning of the second part of her life. And it's like, what will this life look like and feel like? There's so many question marks. And she asked so many questions of her friends. What does it feel like postmenopause? And then you get this beautiful depiction of total freedom. of women doing exactly what they want sexually, like everything.

And suddenly there's a kind of sense of optimism, I suppose. Yeah, you're right. That definitely comes in towards the end, doesn't it? It does feel like it shifts from this, the character starts quite... She's panicking. Panicky, yeah, not quite depressed, but panicky. And then it does move into her. Although there was one bit, her friend really made me laugh when,

I think she's talking to Georgie at the end of the book about like what her career, what is next? And she says, for women, if you kept going, there could be a little flurry right before you died, but until then, wilderness. I was like, oh, that's how we treat so many female writers and creators of like, it's not until they get into like 80s or 90s, do what, and everyone was like, oh, they are good, oh, they've died.

Like, there's so many cultural figures that we've done that to and just kind of left for years. And you'll be like, oh, she was a really famous writer in her 20s, but I've, like, never seen her books anywhere. I think prolonged success is exceptionally hard. Yeah. And I don't know if it is just gendered. And I guess I'm thinking this out loud, but someone can be very successful.

And if they continue working, it's like, oh, they're not as successful as they were at the beginning. Or we get a bit sort of like, okay, that's the kind of thing that person does. I guess with men, you get slightly like national treasure or like elder states when they're allowed to move into like, now I lecture and tell you these things and talk about it. Whereas women often it feels like they just drop. Yeah. Do you think so? I'm not sure. I'm trying to compare it.

I'm thinking about music. I'm thinking like, so the Rolling Stones still do touring. But then look at Madonna, like the shit she gets. She does get shit. Oh my gosh. Very much in an anomaly, unfortunately.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, compared to it, especially, yeah, compared to Rolling Stones. I did a thing with Gabrielle on Saturday, I told you. You did. And as in dreams. Yes, as in dreams. Can come true.

Yeah. But she's about to do her biggest at first ever arena tour. Wow. Now. Wow. That's amazing. And so she's releasing her eighth album.

Wow. And so sitting next to someone. who has had prolonged success and keeps on working, but at their speed. And she was saying, oh, I feel like I'm not prolific enough, that I don't put out enough albums because I have so long between them.

And that's what was making me think, oh my gosh, you know, I think, I guess music is more brutal. Yeah. I want to say something that really, really made me laugh, which is when she describes meeting Davy's mum. Yeah. And I think it was the funniest description I've ever gone.

So she doesn't know this is the person she's flirting with, mother. Who was she? A witch? Had she given him something and now she owned his soul or firstborn child? She had some kind of terrible power over him. She extended her clay-like hand in my direction. I'm Irene, his mother.

Or she was his mother. And I was like, God, again, like the funniness of older women as well, like how she constantly said with this lover as well and with Irene the mother, like flips what you're thinking about them. Like no one is what they seem to be at first. Everyone, you judge everyone quite quickly. Like even Dave, you're like, who is this guy? He's like working in a car shop and is a dancer.

Right. And then you're like, oh, no, actually, he's sort of straightly talented and beautiful and she's lucky to meet him. And I love that Davy's mom had been sort of instrumental in his, I guess, like, sexual growth. That's the other thing about that conversation. This isn't a prudish mom going. I know. Who's this older lady looking at my son? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, there was another quote which I think kind of sums up the whole book. So much of what I thought of as femininity was really just youth. I wrote that down too. I was like, fuck. Yeah, that's huge, that she's just dropping that in front of you. Like, yeah, what made you highlight? But it's kind of the sense of conditioning of what femininity is.

Like, what is it to be a woman, you know, to be this kind of fertile, young, you know, bosomous thing. Who's attractive in the male gaze and who's gentle and I don't know. It's, it's kind of, I suppose, it's what you've been taught in what. Watching chick flicks and reading, you know, everything we've been taught within media is that. Like you don't see enough of other types of women, I suppose. Yeah. Well, I didn't when I was growing up. No.

But what you never see is powerful women. Right. You never, and that's where the age thing comes in because power is sort of earned, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Because you have status or proven talent, you have earned money. there are certain things that prop up power the power of youth is always based on looks and manipulation isn't it it's always sort of conniving low status

not confronting yeah to you know the power of being able to win over men seduce yeah and then also the idea of youth being you know you're your femaleness being defined by your menstruative your menstruation cycles your periods and then them going you just, you know, you have this sense of like post-menopausal women just being like husks.

Oh, just dry, bitter old women. And like it is all, this is all, where does this come from? Yeah. Where does this fucking come from? But then what you realise is actually these women are powerful and they have power over their lives and their choices. Yeah. And it's, and again, the bit that I loved was when she interviewed all her friends about

what it meant to be after the bleed. And what all the different ways that people are. people described what it was like. Yeah, but it was constancy. It was, it wasn't a fluctuation that you weren't in control of anymore. Yeah. And while I wouldn't want to sort of be too negative about that, because that is the state for lots of people with female bodies.

But, oh, what a lovely thing to look forward to. I know. Look, there's a lot more people talking about menopause and pain weren't like. It feels really like an explosion in it. Yeah. And it's very like more science base. And I think it's really nice to have a sort of creative art take on these feelings. Devinna McCa Call's book was very similar to this.

She goes away to a travel lodge. She was done for a really nice carpet. One of the things Miranda said, actually, I think it was an in vogue interview, is this sense of like, I was just talking about how I felt like femininity was, because of what you learn, right? And then this sense of when you're a menopausal woman, you don't see menopausal women in the world on the covers of magazines or whatever. So there's no sense.

no rulebook for what it is to be a post-menopause of women. So there's a sense of freedom in that because, you know, as a young woman, you're taught to be a certain way and look a certain way and behave a certain way. But as an older woman, you're not because there's nothing out there. Yeah, no one cares. No one's looking. Well, you do what you like. But yeah, you can really like, you can really use that as an empowering thing and be like, I have no definitions. I will create my own of who I want to be as an older woman. Bring on that menopause. I'm ready. When I read that, I got genuine. It's the first time I felt unscared, like Yeah, he's like, okay, this could be a positive thing.

This is a huge thing that could be really, really positive. It is brilliant. I really enjoyed it. I felt like going on a sexual safari. It's just something I don't want to do. It does make you think, God, why haven't I done this yet? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's like, your time is running out.

You're like, oh, God. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I've just got to get some childcare sorted. Tell Sarah, I can't make the podcast on Monday because I'm going to a premiere in. to meet with a young window cleaner. Basically his confessions of a window cleaner by the arty version. He's going to give me a Brazilian wax. Do me a smear test.

But no one else has ever done that. I'm going to do an interpretive dance about that very thing. Oh, the fact that it's called all fours, and you're kind of waiting to sort of go, why is it called all fours apart from the fact that there's sex? And then there's a great thing towards the end where her friend, I think, describes all fours as being the safest position. Yeah.

You're at your most stable. So people often feel very, that it's the most, vulnerable sexual position. Yeah. Actually, it's your most stable. And I love that because that's what this book is all the time, inverting your instant response to something and spending a bit more time thinking about it. Yeah.

It's quite fearless, isn't it? Oh, so fearless. To even write this book is very fearless. And as you said, like, I know from her real life, she has broken up with her husband. And she is currently Instagramming a lot about decorating the house for her child and herself. And so there is... And they all live together still. I think, yeah, there was, I don't know if they still are.

She's moved into a, so her studio had an adjoining house, and she's moved into that house. Great. So I think she's near, and they're still best friends and the dog's, yeah. It's still an incredibly. Oh, the dedications at the back. Okay. She thanks Jacqueline Novak as her favorite person. Yes.

She's a brilliant comic American. She just, she did get on your knees. She has on your knees. Incredible stand-up show about blow jobs. It's on Netflix. It's art. It's beautiful. Right.

Her list of thank yous is one of the coolest lists I've ever come across. Jacqueline Novette, Margaret Qualley, Kate Balant. Carrie Brownstein, yeah. Like, it's, it's, I read that and was like, oh, fucking, you're friends. Yeah. Like, Jesus gross. But I love that they're all friends because that's what the teenage girl in me really wants. Maggie Nelson gave her notes.

Oh, my God. I know. I know. Yeah, especially thank to read of Maggie Nelson. Yeah, it's, oh, and Sheila Hettie also read an early draft. And George Saunders read a late draft. I know, I know, I know. But you know what, it's funny because I think if you don't, haven't read her work,

it's easy to almost parody how avant-garde she is and be like, oh, right, she's this sort of mad woman. And then when you read what she's doing, I was like, I'm so, girl, I read this book. So I was like, oh, just, I'm glad to live in a world where she's writing. Yeah, totally. And there's so much substance. It's not one, it's not a skin deep, coolness. No. Instagram thing.

It's someone who I think is living very, very truthfully. Yeah. and rawly and then their work then has so much depth because of it. And we haven't talked that much, Annie, about your interview with... Yes, yes. I would be so intimidated to speak to her. I was terrified. But you might be thanked in the next one.

She was really sound and very giving and generous and incredibly, as you would imagine, very thoughtful and consider about her answers. And she really took a while to construct everything as she wanted it. But I think I was the first interview after she read the book or one of the first. So I think she hasn't fully become practiced about talking about it. So there was a lot of her figuring it out as she was going along in terms of talking. But the one thing I suppose that kept coming back was her just saying, it's really important for people to know that I lived this. I lived this. So I think it's safe to say the hotel room was decorated.

Let's track it down. The window cleaner was a thing. Yeah. That's a sense, I get. I don't think. And her whole life was upended as a result of writing this. Or as this book was adjacent to the upending happening. Wow.

From the small bits I've learned about her, it wouldn't be right if she hadn't. Yeah. She is a performance idol. She has to live the things she expresses. Yeah. I think. Yeah, that's absolutely. I feel.

That's what I mean is she's that, she's a, and it's not to say those artists are better or worse, there's just different levels of artists. And she's at that level where she lives and brings. and if she doesn't, she'd die. Like, she has to express that I'm at the level of like, I will go home and I will disinfect the sides and they go to bed. You've got to love where you are. It's like with actors when sometimes people do method

and they go home and they go, I'm still Dracula. And there's other people who take off their costume and go, I'm Trevor again. You heard that brilliant Natalie Portman quote recently. And she was like, women aren't allowed to do method. Because she was like, women have to go home and look after a kid. You can't come home and be like, no, don't talk to me. I am right.

Your kid is like, what are you doing, mommy? She's like, it's a male privilege to say you do method. I've never looked in it that way. It's so true. When she said it, everyone was like, oh, Natalie. Because like, yeah, you need, who's looking after your house and taking out the bins if you are like a character? He's talking to the cleaner to ask the cleaner to whatever. If you think it's acceptable to ignore your children for months of filming, because you're sure.

You don't want to scare them. Yeah, exactly. How funny. Annie, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. So, so much. It was so nice to talk to you about this life-changing book.

It is a book that changes how you will think about everything, which is rare. Separate bedrooms all around. You won't know yourself. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. Annie's book, The Mess We're In, is available in paperback now. Go and Buy it. It's brilliant. My novel Weirdo and Carriad's book, You and Ocelona, also out in paperback.

So why not grab all three when you're in a book shop? Your bag's big enough. You can find out all about the upcoming book. books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.