The First Bad Man

Miranda July (Get this book)
In a bizarrely touching first novel, July brings the characteristic humor, frankness and emotional ruthlessness of her previous work in film, prose and performance to a larger canvas. Cheryl Glickman lives a lonely, precisely arranged life afflicted by mysterious neuroses, including the persistent sensation of a lump in her throat. She obsesses over Phillip Bettelheim, a board member of the nonprofit where she works, and the belief that she keeps meeting a familiar, beloved soul embodied in the babies of strangers. A sometimes-funny, sometimes-upsetting, surprisingly absorbing novel that lives up to the expectations created by July's earlier work and demonstrates her ability to carry the qualities of her short fiction into the thickly fleshed-out world of a novel.--Kirkus