I usually recommend Learn Python the Hard Way to people who want to learn Python, but I'm very wary of recommending it to people who have never written code before. There's a lot that LPTHW glosses over or assumes you know that can be very very frustrating and discouraging for beginners.

That said, I'm not really sure what to suggest as an alternative. I know Codecademy has a Python course; perhaps somebody here could comment on its quality?