Six Degree (June) 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction, All Fours by Miranda July.

The meme is hosted by Books are My Favourite Best and is described thus: On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book. Each person’s chain will look completely different. It doesn’t matter what the connection is or where it takes you – just take us on the journey with you.

This month starts with All Fours by Miranda July, which has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025. It is described as: 

"A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey."

 

I hadn't heard of this until this month's Six Degrees of Separation. However, the envisaged long cross-country drive in All Fours made me immediately think about The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, which I read last year. It's Kingsolver's first novel and is the story of a young woman named Taylor who takes a cross-country drive that leads to an unexpected turn in her life.

Keeping to the theme of cross-country drives, I can't go past The Passage by Justin Cronin, a post-apocalyptic novel set around a zombie-apocalypse (of sorts). The early stages of The Passage depict a road trip taken by FBI Agent Brad Wolgast, as he seeks to rescue and protect a small girl, Amy, from the federal government. I won't spoil it too much, but I honestly love this book and it's still one of my favourites. Sadly, the sequels didn't measure up, which is often the case.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's another post-apocalyptic novel about a father and his son journeying across America after an event has wiped out most of humankind. I read this quite some time ago and remember it being very bleak and dark. There's something about post-apocalyptic novels that create such a great setting for a long journey across country.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, another of my favourites and another post-apocalyptic novel with a road trip—this time by the narrator Bill Masen and a woman he rescues from captors, Susan. Together they travel across England looking for other survivors to band together with and fight for survival.

Finally, you just can't go past The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien when it comes to talking about long cross-country trips. I mean – Bilbo crosses Middle Earth on his own path and journey. An epic tale of courage, friendship, and the battle between good and evil.

And of course, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, where Frodo embarks on a perilous cross-country journey across Middle Earth to destroy the One Ring. Another legendary epic full of adventure and high stakes. Chef’s kiss.

I look forward to reading what everyone else had come up with for this month. Feel free to review my posts about the Sydney Writers Festival which I attended recently. At Big Beginnings I saw Kaliane Bradley (The Ministry of Time), Ferdia Lennon (Glorious Exploits) and Dominic Amerena (I Want Everything) speak about their journey to publishing their debut novels. At Untrue Crime I saw Ian Rankin, Kate McClymont and Shankari Chandran (Unfinished Business) speak about the important of truth and authenticity in crime writing.