I’m having a Miranda July overload! (Happily, it’s a good place to be). Mini-golf, #6degrees, movies, books…

Last night I saw her 2020 movie, Kajillionaire, and also finished one of her short story collections, No One Belongs Here More Than You, published in 2007. My thoughts are more Miranda-July-in-general rather than specific to this short story collection.

As the credits rolled after the movie, my friend and I looked at each other with a mutual ‘what happens in her mind?!’ expression. Her work consistently takes unexpected turns and I’m constantly surprised (and delighted by that). And there’s so much thought in the detail – every frame in Kajillionaire feels purposeful (I keep thinking about the foam seeping into the family’s living space, their wristwatch alarms set for the clean-up, and the theme of keeping the world at bay and the energy required to do that). But there’s such tenderness, and she captures that so cleverly as well (the Positive Parenting class scenes in the movie broke me).

The long and short of it – I find July absolutely fascinating. I don’t like all of the things she does, but I am absolutely riveted by all of it*.

So, to the short stories – some I finished thinking, ‘what just happened?!’ (again, in a good way); some didn’t pull me in (what did I miss because I don’t think she writes without a particular purpose?); and others had small details that are now burnt on my brain.

Stand-outs – The Swim Team, about a woman who ‘coaches’ swimming without a pool;

I was the kind of coach who stands by the side of the pool instead of getting in, but I was busy every moment. If I can say this without being immodest, I was instead of the water. I kept everything going.

Majesty, about an erotic dream and a missing dog called Potato (were there early hints of All Fours in this story?); Birthmark, about the painful removal of a port-wine birthmark;

It turned out three was just a number. It didn’t describe the pain any more than money describes the thing it buys.** 

and The Sister, about a man who is repeatedly promised a meeting with a colleague’s sister. Each was funny, offered deep understanding, and concluded in a way that I could have never predicted.

The stories are about love in many forms, navigating relationships, heartache (‘…our very few intimacies were simply discontinued…‘), and understanding strangers.

We turned away from each other and set about tightening all the tiny ropes of our misery.

And I laughed –

Just the weekend before, I had danced in a sexy way for the first time; my butt and the beat had connected in a way that portended great things in my future.

This collection is probably only going to appeal to fans, or those like me who are enjoying a crash course in all things July .

3/5

…I just hung out, in a loose imitation of Pip. Pip did not think much of Tammy, but she was mildly intrigued by the normalcy of the friendship.
What do you guys do?
Nothing. Listen to tapes and stuff.
That’s it?
Last weekend we made peanut-butter cookies.
Oh. That sounds fun.
Are you being sarcastic?
No, it does.

*I feel the same about the work of Marina Abramović – weird, compelling, on a different plane.

**Years ago I listened to an audiobook by emergency doctor, Chris Luke, who rejected the idea of asking the ‘pain scale’ question on the basis that all a doctor needs to know is that a person is in pain, and that it’s the doctors task to ease it. I think about this a lot.