The mid to late aughts was a time of catastrophically delusional optimism. You didn’t need to be rich to buy a house; there were loans. You didn’t need to live in an expensive metropole to meet new people; online spaces were opening up. And you didn’t need to let feelings of powerlessness get the best of you; talk of change was in the air.
The stories in Miranda July’s debut collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You, are emblematic of those years. On the whole, it eludes easy categorizations as either ironic or sincere; it sticks its tongue out at certain American values, at performances of goodness and no-nonsense attitudes toward work, but it’s almost desperately serious about its subversions. Its narrators have hope, however vague, and want change, however undefined. Critically, the collection struck a chord, winning the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.
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