'No One Belongs Here More Than You' by Miranda July

In my review of Like by Ali Smith I believe I stated that, from October onwards, I would be ‘bringing out the big guns,’ i.e., reading and writing about nought but classic works, whether contemporary or classic in the more literal sense of the word. Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle certainly fit the bill, for although it was published less than twenty years ago and will not be found in the designated classics section of your local bookstore it has enjoyed immense success in its seventeen or so years on the shelves. Yet after spending more than a fortnight with the same big back-breaker of a book I was in dire need of something short and snappy, a kind of literary palate cleanser if you like.

Enter phenomenal polymath Miranda July and her debut short story collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You. July hails from Berkeley, California, which may well be the most liberal, forward-thinking place on the planet - I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours there last April when I did something decidedly un-touristy and hopped on a BART train heading across the Bay from Powell Street station in lively downtown San Francisco. Anyway, the reason I mention the city of Berkeley and its open-minded outlook is because these are principles which feature frequently in July’s stories. Be it sexuality, obsession, or even out-of-body physical relations - in No One Belongs Here More Than You there are no pesky taboos.

The small volume, with its charmingly garish hot pink and canary yellow cover, leapt out at me from the crowded Waterstone’s shelves, as did the slew of superlatives used to describe its content. Also, it has been quite some time since I picked up a short story collection instead of a novel, and my increasingly ADD attention span was in search of immediate gratification - no slow burners. No One Belongs Here More Than You is many things, but a slow burner it is not. While certain stories shine more than others - Something That Needs Nothing and Making Love in 2003 are real standouts, as is the wonderfully perverse Majesty, one middle-aged woman’s tale of how she longs for Prince William to, quote, 'nuzzle her buns’ - the key ideas which unite them all are explored with great fervour from start to finish.

Loneliness is of great importance in No One Belongs Here More Than You, however in this case it is not a melancholy loneliness, not alienation or isolation, but a self-imposed and almost irreverent kind of solitude. July’s characters are deeply flawed yet resilient individuals, and although the shorter stories in the collection (I Kiss a Door; The Moves) offer but a brief glimpse into their minds they still appear to us fully-formed. How? I could not possibly say. Miranda July, like Lorrie Moore, has a natural flair for the short story form that is impossible to quantify or explain. However, it is far from difficult to appreciate.

This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in October 2012.