Best Behavior

Best Behavior, the new novel by Noah Cicero, is his boldest work yet. As the subject matter becomes increasingly autobiographical, the landscape more bleak, its impact is blunt, brutal, but somehow still hilarious. This is the literature of pain: of living in a world where nothing is right–a temple to capitalism with no room for any kind of human spirit–and, despite everything, trying to find some way to deal with it; then eventually failing. Best Behavior might be the truest story ever told.

Best Behavior is slice-of-life, and that’s as it should be. Where the classics have beginnings, middles, and ends that are relevant to the mainstream consciousness of the times, Best Behavior is a couple of days in the life, making it a more honest and useful cultural artifact. — Rebecca Haze.

In ‘Best Behavior’ Noah Cicero tells a story that works on the precise level I can relate to. Every page speaks to me in his own words. He doesn’t bother making shit up. He says what he thinks needs to be said and then he moves forward from there. — Michael Davidson.

The story is told in sharp sentences that still manage to ramble, like Hemingway. It deals with a dream after the fact. It’s like waking up from a dream. The background is that the narrator thought he would/could possibly be a writer, as a “profession.” Five years after the publication of his first book, thats still not the case. This isn’t surreal though. This is real. He wanted to feel at home in NYC. But he can’t. He feels at home in Youngstown. But he doesn’t really feel at home there. He doesn’t feel at home anywhere really. And that is what makes this an American narrative. — Andrew Worthington.