For fans of Emma Cline and Melissa Broder, the story of an untethered, sardonic young woman falling for an older radio host… and then for his daughter.When aspiring writer Allison moved to L.A., she expected her life to finally take shape. After years of dwelling in grief over her brother's unexpected and untimely death and allowing her mercurial parents' feelings and desires to infect her own, she feels ready become the main character in her own story again. Yet Allison continues to feel inextricably tied to both her parents, particularly her unpredictable father, and weighed down by her the loss of her brother. In L.A., as with anywhere else, she feels lonely and adrift, unable to write and barely scraping by as an English teacher.After a serendipitous run in with famed radio DJ Reid Steinman, an idol of her father’s and her late brother’s, Allison is rapidly drawn under his spell, while also developing an unanticipated, tangled relationship with his adult daughter, Maddie. She’s forced to balance her romance with Reid with her gnawing desire for the intoxicatingly charming Maddie, as it becomes increasingly evident that she and Allison's late brother share more than a few qualities. As Allison's relationships with the equally self-possessed father and daughter deepens, she struggles to establish the boundaries of her own identity.Through candid self-awareness, keen observations, and deliciously wry humor, First Time, Long Time asks, what happens to a young woman’s goals when she becomes involved with a famous man whose needs seem so much louder than her own? And how might she move forward when so much in her past remains unresolved?
One strange Tuesday evening my mother called and said, "The Problem wants to visit you." That's what my mother called my father: The Problem. As far as my mother was concerned, he'd always been a problem. And the worst kind too: one without a solution.
I didn't want to talk about The Problem.
"I'm on a date," I lied. I thought this would be the fastest way to get my mother off the phone-my mother, who so often worried about her only daughter being alone.
That's what my mother always said: I'm worried you're all alone.
"You answered the phone on a date?" my mother asked
"He's in the bathroom."
In the pause before my mother, Carrie, spoke, I knew she must be deciding if I'd lied, and then, if she should say, "I know you're lying." Maybe it was an act of kindness or only because she was distracted, but my mother moved on.
One strange Tuesday evening my mother called and said, "The Problem wants to visit you." That's what my mother called my father: The Problem. As far as my mother was concerned, he'd always been a problem. And the worst kind too: one without a solution.
I didn't want to talk about The Problem.
"I'm on a date," I lied. I thought this would be the fastest way to get my mother off the phone-my mother, who so often worried about her only daughter being alone.
That's what my mother always said: I'm worried you're all alone.
"You answered the phone on a date?" my mother asked
"He's in the bathroom."
In the pause before my mother, Carrie, spoke, I knew she must be deciding if I'd lied, and then, if she should say, "I know you're lying." Maybe it was an act of kindness or only because she was distracted, but my mother moved on.
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