Longlisted for 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize, US & Canada
This haunting exploration of love and desire, disability and madness, trauma and recovery, is a diaristic marvel for fans of Annie Ernaux.
Weaving personal memory with magic realism and folklore,Iris and the Dead asks: What if you could look back and tell someone exactly how they changed the course of your life?
For our narrator, that someone is Iris, the counsellor with whom she developed an unusual, almost violent bond. There are things she needs to tell Iris: some that she hid during the brief time they knew each other, and some that she has learned since. She was missing her mind the autumn they spent together and has since regained it.
Iris and the Dead unfurls the hidden power dynamics of abuse, offering a beguiling inquiry into intergenerational trauma, moral ambiguity, and queer identity.
About the Author :
MIRANDA SCHREIBER is a Toronto-based writer and researcher. Her work has appeared in places like the Toronto Star, the Walrus, the Globe and Mail, BBC, and the National Post. She has been nominated for a digital publishing award by the National Media Foundation and was the recipient of the Solidarity and Pride Champion Award from the Ontario Federation of Labour. Irisand the Dead is her debut book.
Review :
"Despite the dark subject matter, Iris and the Dead is a hopeful book that falls madly in love with the physical world when its narrator's depression finally subsides." --Rain Taxi
"Iris and the Dead is a triggering cautionary tale and a beautiful examination of generational resilience." --Nortend Bookster, starred review
"Marvellous meditations on losing one's mind." --Heather O'Neill, author of Valentine in Montreal
"Iris and the Dead is an aggressively good title, you know? Just incredible... fully immersive, ultimately troubling and triumphant." --The Miramichi Reader
"This is Schreiber's first book and, damn it, I wish I'd written so well at her age." --Cary Fagan, author of A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News
"Iris and the Dead renders love, sickness, tragedy and the sublime lyrically and incisively, equal parts beautiful and haunting." --Maisonneuve
"Iris and the Dead is uncomfortable in the way it feels so true, and perfect in the way its speaker finds her own voice." --Electric Literature
"A novel that, once finished reading, you'll still hear breathing from the bookshelf." --Girls on the Page
"In this lyrical and original autofiction debut, Miranda Schreiber explores the coming out process of a young woman contending with depression, intergenerational trauma and an exploitative relationship with the person she looked to for help. Schreiber bravely reckons with themes of power, trust, love, loss and transformation."--Ms. Magazine
"Uncanny and captivating, Iris and the Dead weaves beauty into the darkness... Schreiber's words will haunt those familiar with the feeling long after they've finished her slim novel." --Literary Review of Canada
"Breathless, eerie, and experimental, Iris and the Dead rejects the redemptive trajectory of mental health recovery autofiction and instead passes the mic to the ghosts, asking: If your treatment-resistant depression could write its own spiritual autobiography, what would it say? Golems, ancestors, lovers, and psychiatrists are part of the chorus. A penetrating queer story that refuses to settle or resolve its lessons, choosing instead the greatest gift: transformation." --Alex Leslie, author of We All Need to Eat
"Iris and the Dead is an unsettling story of an exploitative relationship, blurred boundaries, intergenerational trauma, a fraught medical system, and the shifting landscape of mental illness and recovery. This moving and meditative queer coming-of-age tale is written in lyrical prose vignettes that embrace desire, menace, and myth. Miranda Schreiber's debut is as fierce as it is mesmerizing. A gorgeous book that will appeal to readers of Carmen Maria Machado and Daisy Johnson." --Kathryn Mockler, author of Anecdotes
