THE FIRST BAD MAN by Miranda July

If one listens to an audio version of a novel, has one “read” it? I listened to this novel in two sittings and two jogging sessions. And with the author’s voice in my earbuds, it certainly feels to me like I experienced the fullness of this wacky, intense, gut-wrenching novel. What delighted and impressed me most about it was how successfully Miranda July revealed the protagonist’s interior world — much of which is entirely fabricated, unbeknownst to her. Another aspect of this novel that pleasantly surprised me was how often characters “turned/”shifted” from positive to negative, or negative to positive (and yes, I’ve been reading Robert McKee …)