The First Bad Man
A Novel
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4.0 • 159 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times Bestseller
The “brilliant, hilarious, irreverent, piercing” (O, The Oprah Magazine) debut novel from Miranda July, acclaimed filmmaker, artist, and author of All Fours, a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction.
Cheryl Glickman believes in romances that span centuries and a soul that migrates between babies. She works at a women’s self-defense nonprofit and lives alone. When her bosses ask if their twenty-year-old daughter, Clee, can move into her house for a while, Cheryl’s eccentrically ordered world explodes. And yet it is Clee—the selfish, cruel blond bombshell—who bullies Cheryl into reality and, unexpectedly, leads her to the love of a lifetime.
Tender, gripping, slyly hilarious, infused with raging sexual fantasies 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Eight years after the release of her short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You, contemporary Renaissance woman Miranda July—an artist, filmmaker (Me and You and Everyone We Know), and the creator of the app Somebody—has published a debut novel that’s unabashedly strange and extremely compelling. We love the off-kilter humor and intriguing observations of July’s heroine, Cheryl Glickman. The 40-year-old single woman moves through life befuddled by other people, but she’s also uncannily good at telling the truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
July (No One Belongs Here More than You) successfully transitions from short stories to her first novel, introducing eccentric 40-something Cheryl Glickman in a tale about role-playing. In addition to sexual fantasies featuring her senior co-worker Phillip, unmarried Cheryl also imagines a perennial connection with babies. Her world is flipped upside down when Clee, her boss's 20-year-old daughter, moves in until she can get on her feet. Cheryl's fantasies soon involve Clee with any man that passes by, and she becomes aroused when Clee plays along with self-defense scenarios. When Phillip starts a relationship with a 16-year-old girl, Cheryl grows closer with Clee, switching between roles as her enemy, sparring partner, mother, grandmother, aunt, and girlfriend. Other characters give, or refuse to give, their own performances, including Clee's parents, who refuse to act as grandparents when she gets pregnant, and Cheryl's therapist, who plays mistress to the other office doctor. Cheryl and Clee's simulated fights in the first half will remind readers of July's peculiar short-story style, but the book hits its stride in the second half when Cheryl helps Clee through her pregnancy. 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.
Customer Reviews
You'll want to keep reading and you won't know why.
It's the painful honesty of all the ways women lie to themselves, are socially influenced and silenced, and are forced to retreat internally that will keep you reading. [the wallpaper] some patterns were by accident and some things were conscious choices, and it's all just as ugly-painful as the human experience. There are some beautiful parts if you can squint hard enough to see past all of the poor design choices and make them out. This book is special and it is a "good book" and I think you won't regret reading it, but you won't know what to make of it either.
So weird but so so good
This is a WEIRD read in the best way. I really didn’t know what to expect but really couldn’t put it down. It’s a little “off” in a way that’s super engaging and different and new. I loved it!
Waste of time and money
Don't waste your money or more importantly your time on this book!! Worst thing I have read in a long time!!!