The First Bad Man: A Novel

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 funny?so Miranda July?that readers will be blown away.

Here is Cheryl, a tightly-wound, vulnerable woman who lives alone, with a perpetual lump in her throat. She is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six, who sometimes recurs as other people?s babies. Cheryl is also obsessed with Phillip, a philandering board member at the women?s self-defense nonprofit where she works. She believes they?ve been making love for many lifetimes, though they have yet to consummate in this one.

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 bullies Cheryl into reality and, unexpectedly, provides her the love of a lifetime.

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. The First Bad Man is dazzling, disorienting, and unforgettable.