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Reporting from the Aman Club, the Curtis Jackson and Calvin Broadus Jr. of newsletters salutes the Catholic pioneers of reprotech, quits therapy (again), and has a good cry (or several).

What would make the perfect women’s magazine? Juicy yarns, hot goss, big ideas, deeply personal examinations of women’s lives—and none of the advertiser obligations. Welcome to the Spread, where every week two editors read, listen, and watch it all, and deliver only the best to your inbox.

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Now accepting submissions for a good “curtains match the drapes” joke for this pic of Miranda July in the limoncello kitchen of her new divorcee pad—a rental she renovated without landlord clearance. Respect.

Spreadthusiasts, 

This week’s full Spread is coming at ya on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. We blame Miranda July, as we are wont to do. (Don’t even get us started on the hours lost last summer when Ol’ Mir told Instagram that she and director Mike Mills were splitting, alongside a video of her dancing like a floppity jackrabbit to Ol’ Dirty Bastard, wearing her signature pantyhose and an underboob-length gray T-shirt.) There was just too much to read—and process—about her brand-new novel, All Fours, to hit our usual Tuesday mark. Besides, in myriad profiles tied to yesterday’s release, July mentions that Wednesday was her special book-writing day; it would have been downright rude, we realized, to Spread about it on a plain old Tuesday. As you may have heard, All Fours is being hailed as the consummate “perimenopause novel.” It is also, reportedly, both pretty far out there and super-duper horny. And thus, perhaps, the Spreadiest novel of all time? We will let you know once we get the copies we feverishly ordered from Spread’s lil Bookshop (while we’re on the subject, why not go ahead and order your copies there, too?). For now, we point you to a trio of pieces that, consumed together, offer a broad-spectrum view of the novel, its author, and (since July bears many similarities to her own main character) her protagonist. In the New Yorker, Alexandra Schwartz surprises no one with the meatiest, most insightful July profile, “Miranda July Turns the Lights On.” The New York Times Style section’s “She Wrote the First Great Perimenopause Novel” adds a whimsical Dana Scruggs photoshoot that documents details you’ll read about in Schwartz’s piece, such as the Laffy Taffy-yellow kitchen above. Polish that off with “A Motel Room of One’s Own,” a book review by the Cut’s Emily Gould (drink!), our patron saint of 40-something searching and reinvention. “All Fours possessed me,” Gould writes. “I picked it up and neglected my life until the last page, and then I started begging every woman I know to read it as soon as possible.” Sold!

Hormonal & fabulous?

Rachel & Maggie 

P.S. If someone forwarded this email, go ahead and get yourself on our list here.

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Here’s what paid subscribers are partying like they’re at ZZ’s about this week:

• Egg-freezing for dummies (and literary types)

• Turns out, we have nun pee to thank for our children

• The heroes of the second Sunday in May

• Baez, Jet, Collins, Crawford, Cusack, Rivers…Vassos?

• Red, white, and Cosmo-pink

• Janice Min on the record

• Fire aunts!