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About
The instant New York Times bestseller is astonishing.
In The First Bad Man, Miranda July tells the story of Cheryl, a vulnerable, uptight woman in her early forties who lives alone, with a perpetual lump in her throat, unable to cry. Cheryl is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six; she also believes she has a profound connection with Phillip, a philandering board member at Open Palm, the women's self-defense studio where she has worked for twenty years.
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. And yet it is Clee-the selfish, cruel blond bombshell-who teaches Cheryl what it means to love and be loved and, inadvertently, provides the solace of a lifetime.
This is a spectacularly original, unsettling, accomplished, and moving first novel with a tender and beguiling happy ending.
In The First Bad Man, Miranda July tells the story of Cheryl, a vulnerable, uptight woman in her early forties who lives alone, with a perpetual lump in her throat, unable to cry. Cheryl is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six; she also believes she has a profound connection with Phillip, a philandering board member at Open Palm, the women's self-defense studio where she has worked for twenty years.
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. And yet it is Clee-the selfish, cruel blond bombshell-who teaches Cheryl what it means to love and be loved and, inadvertently, provides the solace of a lifetime.
This is a spectacularly original, unsettling, accomplished, and moving first novel with a tender and beguiling happy ending.
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Reviews
"Miranda July's first novel announces something new, not only in its invention, characterization, and pace, but emotional truth. With it, the esteemed artist and filmmaker joins the front rank of young American novelists - and then surpasses them."
Hilton Als, author of White Girls
"Miranda July's ability to pervert norms while embracing what makes us normal is astounding. Writing in the first person with the frank, odd lilt of an utterly truthful character, she will make you laugh, cringe and recognize yourself in a woman you never planned to be. By the time July tackles motherhood, the book has become a bible. Never has a novel spoken so deeply to my sexuality, my spiritua
Lena Dunham, author of Not That Kind of Girl
"July's work reminds us that the essential storytelling tool is voice. Hers is smart, funny, twisted, vulnerable, humane, and reassuring: a dazzling human consciousness speaking frankly and fondly and directly to you. If I ever start to doubt the power of language and intelligence, I only have to read a few lines of July to have my faith restored."
George Saunders, author of Tenth of December