The First Bad Man

Product Information

I wondered how many other women had sat on this toilet and stared at this floor. Each of them the center of their own world, all of them yearning for someone to put their love into so they could see their love, see that they had it." Shot-for-Shot Remake: His last two shorts ("Millionaire Droopy" and "Cat's Meow") were remakes of earlier shorts ("Wags to Riches" and "Ventriloquist Cat", respectively) done for Cinemascope. Spitalfields Crypt Trust (SCT) is an East London charity providing practical help for people recovering from complex drug and alcohol addictions. They provide homes, therapy, productive activity and a supportive community to help people to avoid relapses and lead healthier, happier lives.

Miranda July’s debut novel can be considered to be her third movie after Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) and The Future (2011). I assume it was written as prose because she couldn’t get another movie off the ground. It’s easy to imagine the film adaption with her in the lead role. Open Mouth, Insert Foot: One of the literal gags in "Symphony in Slang," as the hipster explains that "every time [he] opened [his] mouth, [he] put [his] foot in it." July suffuses her narrative with compassion... The First Bad Man is a terrific novel… an off-kilter, extremely smart meditation on sex, love, loneliness, and the demands of work and womanhood…. engrossing, surprising, and emotionally true.” Not the Fall That Kills You…: The killer in "Dumb-Hounded" jumps off a tall building to his supposed death, but he has "good brakes" that he uses to screech himself to a halt just before hitting the pavement, on which he lands as gentle as a feather.Sexophone: Hot Trumpet variant whenever an attractive woman struts onto the scene. Always the same riff too ("Frankie and Johnny"). My main criticism is that the satire is not sufficiently consistent, or perhaps not sufficiently intentional. Throughout large passages in the book, I felt that July was actually encouraging the reader to buy into what I had hoped she was ripping off - for example, the epilogue reads too much to me like a happy ending. I think this book works *only* as satire - not as e.g. a post-modern love story. The characters are not well-drawn enough for the latter; they are caricatures, and they don't elicit sympathy from an intelligent reader.

I wanted more for Cheryl other than her life's plan being dictated by the poor choices of a psychotic houseguest (I never really got why the parents didn't just give Clee money to live on her own...I wanted to strangle Carl and Suzanne in every appearance...sic some of Marcellus Wallace's crew on Philip). Too bad July didn't. Want more for Cheryl, that is. We don’t always know what intimate life consists of until novels tells us…a powerful mother-son love story… [the ending] leaves one thrillingly breathless…one realizes only then that one has been waiting the whole time for this very thing. And so one welcomes the multitalented Miranda July to the land of novel-writing…No one belongs here more than she.” Official Somebody hotspots so far include Los Angeles County Museum of Art (with a presentation by Ms. July on Sept. 11), The New Museum (presentation on Oct. 9), Yerba Buena Center for The Arts (San Francisco), Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and Museo Jumex (Mexico City.) Museum-goers are invited to send and deliver messages in these spaces where there are likely to be other users. 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. The novel starts off tentatively, veers into derivative and willfully sensational theater-of-the-absurd drama — part Pinter, part Genet — and then mutates, miraculously, into an immensely moving portrait of motherhood and what it means to take care of a child.

The First Bad Man

Of course, one might say – it is all fiction, so none of it is real. But at least in fiction, there is usually a suspension of disbelief that allows the reader to take what is being said at face value. Miranda July starts out on that path, but her deviations get wilder and wilder. By the end – an epilogue that makes no sense at all – one wonders if even the early parts of the narrative can have any truth. Given the benefit of hindsight, even the normal seems surreal. Phillip, the board member, seems to be returning her affections, but really he is just warming her up to confess that he has fallen in love with an underaged girl but that he hasn’t yet consummated the relationship and he won’t -- unless Cheryl gives the okay. As he waits for her to decide if it’s okay, he sends her status updates on the sexual side of things: The girl has been rubbed through the jeans. She’s held his stiff member. That sort of thing. July's writing is strange and beautiful, with enough cleverness woven into the characters' strange fantasy lives to keep readers contemplating the family roles and games adults undertake. " - Publishers Weekly The First Bad Man has time to unfold like an origami fortune-teller, revealing emotional landscapes that are satisfyingly complex, if slightly wrinkled…darker and more delicious than anything you'd expect.”

Country Mouse: The premise of "Little Rural Riding Hood." The Country Wolf is invited to the city by his cousin, who warns him that "Here in the city we do not yell and whistle at the ladies." When Country Wolf sees Red, however, he simply can't help himself. Brilliant, hilarious, irreverent, piercing-- T he First Bad Man powers past sexual boundaries and gender identification into the surprising galaxy of primal connection" ( O, The Oprah Magazine). Not So Stoic: Whenever Droopy receives a kiss from Red, he generally reacts the same way Wolfie would, even kidnapping her at the end of Wild and Woolfy.

Notable Shorts Include:

P.S. I can't believe George Saunders blurbed this novel. Eggers, yes, because a byline is a byline. Homes, yes, because her book ( May We All Be Forgiven) is turning out to be just as creepy. But Saunders? Dude. 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?"