The First Bad Man 

 

By Miranda July

 

A very funny, odd and awkward novel (you’ll see what I mean when you read the quotes below).

 

Cheryl, a 42 year old woman, unmarried with no prospects and no children, is asked to take in a difficult 21 year old girl, Clee, the daughter of her boss. Their relationship starts at annoying each other and grows into something very surprising, a first for both characters. She is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six, who sometimes recurs as other people's babies.

 

Cheryl has quite the dirty imagination as well which leaves you laughing and cringing at the same time (although I should point out, never arouses you).

 

It may take a good 20% to fully get the gist of this book, but press on. The writing style is sometimes a bit confusing to start with but this is just her character – a bit neurotic, eccentric and obsessive.

 

This is definitely a novel you won’t forget. I gave it 4 stars.

 

Favourite Quotes:

• You know what? Forget what I just said. You’re already a part of this. You will eat, you will laugh at stupid things, you will stay up all night just to see what it feels like, you will fall painfully in love, you will have babies of your own, you will doubt and regret and yearn and keep a secret. You will get old and decrepit, and you will die, exhausted from all that living. That is when you get to die. Not now

• I didn’t bathe him because I was too afraid he would slip out of my hands or his belly button would open. Then one night I woke up at three A.M. certain he was rotting like a chicken carcass. Only as I lowered him into the sink did I realise this was a crazy time to wash a baby and I began to cry because he was so trusting – I could do anything and he would go along with it, the little fool

• My arms became tired, but it wasn’t my place to decide when to end it… I barely had the strength to tuck Jack into his sling; my arms hung like noodles

• If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have

• When you live alone people are always thinking they can stay with you, when the opposite is true: who they should stay with is a person whose situation is already messed up by other people and so one more won’t matter

• Like a rich person, I live with a full-time servant who keeps everything in order—and because the servant is me, there’s no invasion of privacy