First Time, Long Time

"[T]he funniest debut book of the year." --Debutiful

For readers of Emma Cline and Melissa Broder, "a brilliant novel about becoming more the person you're meant to be," following an untethered, sardonic young woman who falls for an older man and begins to lose herself (Roxane Gay).

Aspiring writer and all-around naive person Allison expected her life to finally take shape when she moved to Los Angeles. After years grieving her brother's untimely death and allowing her mercurial father's feelings and desires to infect her own, she feels ready to become the main character in her own story again. But in LA, as with anywhere else, she's rudderless, unable to write and barely scraping by as an English teacher.

So when she has a serendipitous run in with famed radio personality Reid Steinman, an idol of her father's and her late brother's, she's eager to see where their relationship might go, and who she might become. Caught in his thrall, she falls back into her old self-effacing patterns, struggling to maintain the boundaries of her own identity. Suddenly, an unanticipated lifeline emerges: an intoxicating tryst with Reid's 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.

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?

Author: Amy Silverberg
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 07/22/2025
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.19h x 6.32w x 1.14d
ISBN: 9781538726471


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/12/2025
Booklist 06/23/2025
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2025

About the Author
Amy Silverberg is a writer and comedian. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing & Literature from USC. Her fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Paris Review, Granta, The Idaho Review, TriQuarterly, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. Her stand-up has been featured on Comedy Central, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. She also writes television, most recently for "The Movie Show" on the SYFY Channel.