Symbols All Fours Miranda July

The Excelsior Motel Room: From Affair Sanctuary to Sacred Cave in All Fours

What Is the Excelsior Motel Room?

The Excelsior Motel is a faded one-story motel in Monrovia, California, with two large dirty white columns. The narrator first discovers it in Chapter 5 when she abandons her cross-country drive. She rents room 321, a surprisingly large but drab space with a thin mattress, maroon carpet, cheap nylon curtains, and a greenish-gray abstract painting. Over time she renovates it extensively (Chapters 6) and later uses it as a weekly Wednesday retreat (Chapter 17). The room becomes a central physical symbol for her secret life, her affair with Davey, and eventually her own inner freedom.

Where It Recurs

The Excelsior appears in key moments across the novel:

  • Chapter 5: First arrival; the narrator books the room after a detour, lies to Harris about being in Utah, and begins her double life.
  • Chapter 6: Renovation with interior designer Claire (Davey’s wife); the room is transformed with wallpaper, new carpet, chintz drapes, pink velvet chairs, and a marble-topped desk.
  • Chapter 17: The narrator arranges a recurring Wednesday reservation; Skip gives her free lifetime access.
  • Chapter 28: Meeting with pop star Arkanda in room 321; afterward the narrator reinterprets the space as a sacred cave.
  • Chapter 29/30: Four years later, a dance performance evokes the room; the narrator realizes “the room is everywhere.”

How Its Meaning Changes

The motel room evolves through several distinct symbolic layers:

  1. Secret affair hideaway – Initially a place to conduct a physical affair with Davey. The narrator lies about her location and invests heavily in decorating (Ch. 6), turning a transient space into a fantasy nest.

  2. Renovation as self-creation – Spending $20,000 on improvements that include wallpaper “patterned with pink peonies and apricot dahlias” and a “Grand Parterre Sarouk carpet” (Ch. 6) mirrors her attempt to reshape her identity. She tells Harris the room is for work, but it is actually a stage for her forbidden desires.

  3. Sacred cave and womb – After Arkanda leaves in Chapter 28, the narrator thinks: “Room 321 was the cave and I was its guard. I had made a goddamn womb and I had oneness in it every week … free.” The room becomes a space for spiritual replenishment, not just lust. She sleeps in room 322 and “woke up in the past,” writing her story.

  4. Universal sacred space – In Chapter 30, during a dance performance, the stage lights shift to “golden orange, evoking the motel room.” The narrator realizes the room is everywhere: “every day sacred.” The physical room dissolves into an inner state of gratitude and release.

Character and Theme Connections

Character Connections

  • The Narrator – The room is her secret sanctuary, where she explores desire (with Davey), creativity (writing), and eventually self-acceptance. Her transformation from “Parker” (needy for applause) to a freer person is anchored here.

  • Harris – The narrator’s husband never visits; he supports the idea vaguely (“Have fun,” chapter 17). The room emphasizes their emotional distance. Harris’s indifference enables the affair but also reflects the marriage’s stale dynamics.

  • Davey and Claire – Davey is the lover; Claire is the decorator. Claire’s renovation becomes an ironic act: she helps create the space where her husband’s affair unfolds. The room binds the three characters in a triangle of deception and beauty.

  • Jordi – The narrator’s friend who knows about the affair. She encourages the narrator to “follow beauty” (Chapter 6), validating the room’s importance.

  • Sam – The narrator’s child is indirectly present. The narrator describes how Sam would have explored the motel room on first arrival (Chapter 5). Later, the narrator thinks of Sam while repeating “I can’t believe this happened” (Chapter 28), linking motherhood to the room’s themes of survival.

  • Arkanda – The pop star’s visit in Chapter 28 transforms the room from a place of private fantasy into a shared space of trauma and connection. Their mutual “fetal‑maternal hemorrhage” becomes a ritual that expands the room’s meaning.

Theme Connections

  • Desire and Aging – The narrator, at forty-five, uses the room to pursue a younger lover (Davey). The room is where she confronts her body’s changes and her hunger for vitality.

  • Marriage and Transformation – The room is a counter‑space to her marriage with Harris. It enables her to break from the “Driver/Parker” dynamic and experiment with a new self.

  • Female Aging and Perimenopause – The narrator’s age (45) is noted explicitly. Her physical transformation – weightlifting (Chapter 17), wearing red shirtwaist dress (Chapter 6) – is tied to the room as a place of embodied renewal.

  • Fantasy vs. Reality – The elaborate renovation (Ch. 6) is a fantasy funded with real money. Claire’s work creates an illusion that the narrator initially cannot sustain (she “folds to the floor” after Claire leaves). Yet eventually the fantasy becomes a genuine source of freedom.

  • Open Marriage and Nonmonogamy – The narrator’s arrangement with Harris is not explicitly consensual nonmonogamy, but the room allows her to practice a form of open marriage. She tells Harris she is “working” while conducting the affair.

Four Study Questions with Answers

1. Why does the narrator spend twenty thousand dollars renovating a motel room she will only use for a few weeks?
The renovation is an act of self-assertion. In her marriage, she has no ownership: “Harris already owned our house … I just moved in” (Ch. 6). By decorating the room, she creates a space that is entirely hers – down to the wallpaper pattern and the “great chairs.” It represents her desire to be the author of her own environment, even if only temporarily.

2. How does the meeting with Arkanda change the meaning of the motel room?
Before Arkanda’s visit (Ch. 28), the room is primarily a place for the narrator’s affair. After their shared ritual – repeating “I can’t believe this happened” – the narrator reinterprets the room as a “sacred cave” and a “goddamn womb.” It shifts from a site of erotic secrecy to one of existential connection and maternal grief.

3. In what way does the motel room eventually become “everywhere” for the narrator?
During Davey’s dance performance in Chapter 30, the stage lighting turns golden orange, which directly evokes the motel room’s chintz-draped light. The narrator stops wanting to possess Davey and feels “profound gratitude.” She understands that the sacredness she found in that one room can be carried anywhere – every day becomes “sacred, making every day sacred.”

4. What role does Claire play in the room’s symbolic value?
Claire, Davey’s wife, is the interior designer who executes the renovation. Her involvement is deeply ironic: she unknowingly beautifies the space for her husband’s affair. Yet Claire’s taste – “Brunelleschi, burgundy, persimmon, dahlias, and tonka bean” – creates a genuine masterpiece. The room’s opulence (“not as extreme as Le Bristol, but I was moved”) comes from Claire’s skill, making the narrator’s sanctuary a collaborative work of art that transcends the deception.

For more on the narrator’s arc, see the character page. Explore related themes: desire and aging, marriage and transformation, and fantasy vs reality.