'A sometimes-funny, sometimes-upsetting, surprisingly absorbing novel that lives up to the expectations created by July's earlier work and demonstrates her ability to carry the qualities of her short fiction into the thickly fleshed-out world of a novel.' - Kirkus It will satisfy July's fans and win her many more.' - Library Journal This well-written, compelling novel will delight the open-minded reader looking for something new. 'July's writing is strange and beautiful, with enough cleverness woven into the characters' strange fantasy lives to keep readers contemplating the family roles and games adults undertake. The First Bad Man is dazzling, disorienting, and unforgettable. Tender, gripping, slyly hilarious, infused with raging sexual obsession and fierce maternal love, Miranda July's first novel confirms her as a spectacularly original, iconic, and important voice today, and a writer for all time. And yet it is Cleethe selfish, cruel blond bombshellwho bullies Cheryl into reality and, unexpectedly, provides her the love of a lifetime. When Cheryl's bosses ask if their twenty-one-year-old daughter, Clee, can move into her house for a little while, Cheryl's eccentrically ordered world explodes. She believes they've been making love for many lifetimes, though they have yet to consummate in this one. Cheryl is also obsessed with Phillip, a philandering board member at the women's self-defense nonprofit where she works. She is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six, who sometimes recurs as other people's babies. Here is Cheryl, a tightly-wound, vulnerable woman who lives alone, with a perpetual lump in her throat.

From the acclaimed filmmaker, artist, and bestselling author of No One Belongs Here More Than You, a spectacular debut novel that is so heartbreaking, so dirty, so tender, so funnyso Miranda Julythat readers will be blown away.

The first bad man by miranda july