The First Bad Man

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A Guardian literary highlight for 2015 A Huffington Post 'One to Watch' in 2015 'Astounding' LENA DUNHAM, creator of Girls and author of Not That Kind of Girl 'The First Bad Man brings together all of July's talents - it's 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 This Book Will Save Your Life and May We Be Forgiven The first novel by the filmmaker, artist and bestselling author Miranda July confirms her as a spectacularly original, iconic, and important voice today, and a writer for all time. The First Bad Man is dazzling and unforgettable.

"July's storytelling skills crackle to life" (New York Times)

"The novel exploded my expectations and became unlike anything I've ever read . . . hilarious . . . A wry, smart companion on any day. It's warm, it has a heartbeat and a pulse. This is a book that is painfully alive" (The New York Times Book Review)

"Astonishing . . . in one novel, July tells us more about our universal need to be loved, and our ability to love and be loved, than most earthbound authors will in a lifetime" (Vanity Fair)

"Miranda July's heroine in this unforgettable novel is one of the most original, most confounding and strangely sympathetic characters . . . This novel is almost impossible to put down, and confirms July as a novelist of the first order" (DAVE EGGERS)

"Astounding . . . she will make you laugh, cringe and recognise yourself in a woman you never planned to be . . . Never has a novel spoken so deeply to my sexuality, my spirituality, my secret self. I know I am not alone" (LENA DUNHAM)

"I am in awe of Miranda July . . . The First Bad Man brings together all of July's talents - it's 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 THIS BOOK WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE and MAY WE BE FORGIVEN)

"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 THE TENTH OF DECEMBER)

"The "yes, that's really the way it is!" moments in this book came so fast and furious that I found myself page-turningly propelled into a story that, despite its subtly off-kilter course, somehow - I don't know how - ended up revealing the invisible and depthless emotional reality that roils and tugs beneath us all. Miranda July's protagonist inhabits this uncharted world of unspeakable desires, embarrassing hopes and shifting conquests more fully than any in contemporary fiction I can recall, and you will inhabit it right along with her. You will also inhabit her. And she, you. The First Bad Man is a strange miracle of a book, and despite the opinion of its main character, a truly great American love story for our time" (CHRIS WARE author of BUILDING STORIES)

"The first novel by the filmmaker and artist Miranda July is like one of those strange mythological creatures that are part one thing, part another - a griffin or a chimera, perhaps, or a sphinx . . . An immensely moving portrait of motherhood and what it means to take care of a child . . . July writes of Cheryl's discovery of maternal love with heartfelt emotion and power" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)

"Lovely writing is interspersed with outer-space levels of strange . . . yet gradually this catalogue of the grotesque builds into something beautiful, and this deeply odd book abruptly becomes transcendent. It feels like being on a plane when it takes off - all that rattling, speed, and oil, and then suddenly: airborne" (Elle)

"Brilliant . . . Within the context of the wider world - in which all speech is policed, but especially women's stories about their uniquely feminine personal experiences - The First Bad Man feels visionary . . . Few have Miranda July's . . . particular talent for couching what feel like naked, universal truths in clouds of the imagined and the impossible" --(Slate
"Miranda July's exciting and wild novel The First Bad Man begins deeply, absurdly funny, gets increasingly twisted and strange, and then ends quietly, urgently heartfelt. It is a novel about aging, about motherhood, about sex, about weird wounded women - yes - but it is really a novel about the desperate possibility in all of us to love and be loved. The First Bad Man is like no other novel you will read this year (or any other year)" --(Dana Spiotta)

"With The First Bad Man, Miranda July provides an audaciously original, often hilarious map of the ever-expanding reach of unhinged imagination in America. With IMAX-scale emotional projections and a post-gay regimen of sexual fantasies, July takes us on a picaresque journey in which the heroine's ultimate challenge turns out to be a stunningly ordinary circumstance more transfixing than all the virtual caprices a twenty-first-century mind can muster" --(Andrew Solomon)