This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Miranda July is an actor, a filmmaker, and a writer, and she's got a new novel out called

all fours. Staff writer Alexander Schwartz has been reading and watching Miranda

July for nearly 20 years. I saw her first movie, Me and You and everyone we know, which

came out in 2005 the same year that I graduated from high school.

So when I heard she had a new book coming out, I was very curious and I was blown away.

It was funny, It was fast moving. It was exciting. It was scary.

Here's Miranda July reading her book.

Originally I had planned to get to New York the normal way fly there but then Harris and I had gotten into an odd conversation with another couple at a party.

I think this is a book that readers will read while biting their nails or covering their eyes.

It is really moving. It's wild and it's adventurous and it has to do with a woman whose life changes and who changes her own life

totally when she reaches middle age. And at the start of the book she goes on a

road trip. She's headed to New York, but surprise, she doesn't make it to New York.

Basically less than an hour outside of LA, she pulls into a small town called Monrovia, goes to a gas station, meets a young guy there, and what follows

this encounter upends her entire life.

How many times had I turned back at the first ripple of self-doubt?

You had to withstand a profound sense of wrongness if you ever wanted to get somewhere new.

So far, each thing I had done in Monrovia was guided by a version of me that had never been in charge before.

A nitwit? A mad woman? Probably.

But my more seasoned parts just had to be patient, hold their tongues, their many and sharp tongues, and give this new girl a chance.

Alexandra Schwartz sat down with Miranda July recently to talk about her new book.

...