The First Bad Man

The First Bad Man by Miranda July (2015)  There were a few points while reading this novel that I could have just not gone back to it, just because of the extent to which it made me squirm; sometimes it's hard for me to look at human beings at all, much less under a microscope. I kept going back because I wanted to. I won't elaborate on details, because really, the less you know before reading this the better. It doesn't hurt, either, that it's written with the precision of short story, and there is a story, surprisingly twisty and turn-y as a really good mystery, and it's satisfying. And in the end, as hard as the human beings depicted here—some of them—were to love, I loved them.