Six Degrees of Separation: All Fours by Miranda July

First Saturday of the month and time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links to my reviews are in the titles of the books chosen. The starter book this month is:

All Fours by Miranda July

This novel, although well-written, set off all my grumpy old woman alarms – the protagonist annoyed me so intensely! The plot revolves around a sort-of-famous artist deciding to drive from LA to NYC but getting no further than a motel half an hour into the trip when she gets obsessed by the young man who washes her windscreen when she stops for gas. I found it so irritating.

A road trip that doesn’t get so derailed going in the opposite direction is:

The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress by Beryl Bainbridge

Beryl’s last novel, finished by her great friend Brendan King, was based on a grain of a true story – combining Robert Kennedy’s murder and a road-trip across the USA undergone by Beryl with American man she had had a relationship with. In the novel version, Rose comes to the USA to find Dr Wheeler who had helped her as a child, having met Harold who has rather different motives for finding him. By Bainbridge standards, this novel is rather vague, but the road-trip holds it together. It is witty but dark underneath.

An impromptu road trip with a destination is;

A Long Way Off by Pascal Garnier

Marc is in the middle of a mid-life crisis and decides to visit his institutionalised grown-up daughter, Anne. While there he proposes trip to the seaside, and disclaimer signed, the staff let Anne go out. In typical Garnier very dark but very witty style, things will go wrong as Anne begins to enjoy her freedom too much with disastrous consequences. This was Garnier’s last novella – and one of his best (although they’re all good).

Another impromptu French road-trip is:

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun by Sébastien Japrisot

First published in 1966, this novel tells the tale of secretary Dany, a Parisienne, whose boss gets her to drive his classic Thunderbird to drop him at the airport – and Dany decides rather than return the car to take it for a nice drive, which becomes a weekend down South. The first twist comes when she stops off for a coffee, and a coat she’d left there the day before is returned to her! Twists now come thick and fast as she is attacked, and encounters more people she supposedly met the day before. I described it as having visuals that smack of Hitchcock, with words having a sense of Graham Greene. Highly Recommended.

Another misleading road-trip can be found in

Eurotrash by Christian Kracht

This is thinly disguised Swiss autofiction in which the narrator, who shares the author’s name, is guilt-tripped into taking his 80-year-old mother on a circular road-trip from and back to her mental institution in Zurich by taxi, during which she wants to give away her entire fortune, liberated from the bank and stored in a carrier bag. Plenty of funny set pieces, loads of people preying on them for her money, an honest taxi driver, and problems with colostomy bags, alongside a running gag in which the narrator is continually mistaken for German author Daniel Kehlmann. Darkly funny in parts, sad in others as the narrator confronts his mother and his family’s Nazi past, it was longlisted for the International Booker, but wasn’t shortlisted.

Another circular road trip can be found in:

Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

A quirky Icelandic novel. The narrator is persuaded to use an appointment with a clairvoyant that her pregnant friend can’t get to, who predicts a road-trip with money and love and twists and turns. The narrator sets off with her friend’s young son in tow around Iceland’s ring road, and they have fun adventures along the way – and it all comes true. This novel also features recipes for all the meals they had along the way – from roadkill goose to undrinkable petrol station coffee. The dead-pan narration makes for an interest ing read.

And finally, completing the drive across America that didn’t happen in the starter book:

Husbands by Mo Fanning

Yes, this gay romance features Route 66. Brit, Kyle is on vacation in Las Vegas – and we all know that what happens in Vegas should stay there, but in his case it doesn’t – he manages to marry a film director who had a #MeToo moment, when a teenaged boy died at his party. Kyle must prove the marriage null and void, and along with Noah, the director’s real current fiancé, they set out to find a chap who is actually still legally married to the director. This was a fabulous page-turner with complex relationships and loads of drama. Great fun.

I went on one big road trip back and forth across the USA with visits to Switzerland, France and Iceland along the way. Where will your six degrees take you?