The First Bad Man: A Novel

The New York Times bestselling debut novel from Miranda July, acclaimed filmmaker, artist, and author, whose new movie Kajillionaire is in theatres now.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.

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304 pages

Average rating: 6

14 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

Mick
Jun 22, 2022
7/10 stars
As a BIG fan of Miranda July, this novel was surprising, not so much in it's prose (which was very like July in its quirky but cutting flow) but in the story that it told. Much like in No One Belongs Here More Than You, July likes to fixate on the less observed sides of less than desirable characters in unfortunate situations. Her stories tend to ask you to empathize in ways that you maybe haven't before with characters that you wouldn't normally relate to. I think this book asked a little too much of the reader. While I appreciated it's place in the Miranda July anthology, it was not my favorite.

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