There’s a reason why every woman I know over the age of 35 is reading this book: It’s impossible not to use it as a sort of pleasure-centric measuring stick — as a way to evaluate if you, too, want to blow up your life because it has became so staid, so expected, so insupportable. Can a life that was once radical coast on that radicality forever? Can a life that is radical in its work, and creative focus, sustain a private life that is conventional, and even conservative? Can the comforts of convention outweigh the pleasures of what is novel, and unexpected, and new?
In answering those questions — answering them plainly, and bravely — the book jumps off the ledge, off the wall of the cliff shown in the cover painting. In a universe of mealy-mouthed endings, All Fours has battle-tested conclusions. It is utterly convincing in its misery, and therefore utterly convincing when, once that misery has been fully experienced, utterly convincing in its hopefulness. It’s the inverse of Hannah Hogarth in Girls: This is the voice of the generation (Generation X).
