The First Bad Man

“I am in awe of Miranda July. She is the person I want to be, the artist who feels free to work in any number of media, the artist who is so talented, expressive. The First Bad Man is a book that must be read, a book that must be purchased in duplicate – one for you, one for a friend. Don’t think you can loan this book – you’ll never get it back.”
– A.M. Homes, author of May We Be Forgiven

“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 spirituality, my secret self. I know I am not alone.”
– Lena Dunham, author of Not That Kind of Girl

Cheryl Glickman believes in romances that span centuries and a soul that migrates between babies. She works at a women’s self-defence 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 establishes her as a spectacularly original, iconic, and important voice today, and a writer for all time.