As Miranda July's novel, ALL FOURS, opens, the unnamed 45-year-old narrator is about to embark on a cross-country road trip --- from her home in Los Angeles to a series of professional meetings in New York. She could fly there, of course, but she's determined to prove to herself that she's, in the words of her husband, a "Driver" rather than a "Parker."

According to Harris, "Drivers 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." For the narrator, an attention-seeking multidisciplinary artist, this feels a bit on the nose.

"As outlandish and slightly silly as the first half might be, it's the second half --- once the narrator returns home to Los Angeles and decides how (and, eventually, if) she wants to resume her old way of life --- that the novel's real substance starts to show."

So she packs up the car, sets off on the highway…and exits only 30 minutes later, in the small city of Monrovia, California. At first, she just stops to get gas and put air in the tires. But she winds up going to a diner, and then --- perhaps in part because she keeps crossing paths with the same young man, Davey --- she decides to get a room in a roadside motel rather than head back on the road.

Once there, she spruces up the place a bit. First, she purchases a gorgeous bedspread, and then, feeling inspired, pays an interior designer (who also happens to be Davey's wife) an extraordinary amount of money --- everything she earned in a recent prize competition for her art --- to completely redesign it. The room is gorgeous. It feels like an oasis from the rest of her life --- and soon she's lying to Harris, their young child Sam, and her professional colleagues, spending two weeks in Monrovia while pretending to continue her trip. She befriends Davey, a rental car clerk who aspires to become a professional dancer, and invites him over every day for dancing and, eventually, some bizarrely intimate moments.

If all this sounds a trifle odd, it totally is. But readers who have encountered July's prior work in fiction, film or visual art will know to stick with the narrative. As outlandish and slightly silly as the first half might be, it's the second half --- once the narrator returns home to Los Angeles and decides how (and, eventually, if) she wants to resume her old way of life --- that the novel's real substance starts to show.

Having been told by her gynecologist that she has entered perimenopause, the narrator begins to wonder how this phase of life might affect her choices going forward. What limitations does it introduce? What possibilities does it open up? And what are the implications for all sorts of relationships, from motherhood and friendship to, most critically, marriage? For the narrator, the hard-won solution upends the status quo. And although not all readers will feel inspired to follow her example, there's still plenty of food for thought here, all couched in situations and characters so vivid and unusual that the topical content never feels preachy or contrived.

The novel's cover depicts an Albert Bierstadt painting, showing the Rocky Mountains awash in the gleaming rays of a western sunset. Many of July's readers, especially women, might be inspired to view their own golden years not with dread or worry but with a new sense of openness, wonder and possibility.