Iris and the Dead by Miranda Schreiber

Iris and the Dead is an aggressively good title, you know? Just incredible. It’s a complicated novel, too, full of twists and turns and despite what seems like it could be a fairly clearcut protagonist (our narrator, the writer of the story, a young woman looking back at an abusive therapy relationship when she was eighteen, following a period of atypical depression) versus a villain (the abuser, Iris, a therapist who is assigned to the narrator and soon steps across the boundaries of a professional relationship, inviting the narrator out and talking with her all hours of the day, as well as going over time in their appointments, to the notice of Iris’s colleagues). The novel is the narrator’s attempts to work out what happened over the three months of their intense relationship, and how the experience is still affecting her.

Schreiber wrote this novel like a diary, but each section is on a different facet of the narrator’s pre-Iris life, and her post-Iris moratorium, trying to determine why she felt so intensely about Iris, and what about the relationship was so problematic, other than the fact that Iris was her therapist. This excavation is both fascinating and difficult to read; the descriptions of depression and the resulting trauma from it and her relationship with Iris is vivid.

In the second part of the novel, titled “The Dead Family”, Schrieber explores hereditary mental illness and generational trauma through the lens of magical realism, exploring the connections the narrator has with her deceased ancestors, and why she might have gone through a period in her childhood where she felt nothing and remembers little of it. This was less effective than the diary entries, I felt, but an interesting way to look at these kinds of familial curses, which too many of us inherit.

Did I enjoy Iris and the Dead? I feel like I say this often, but it’s even more true for this novel: I’m not sure it mattered. I devoured the story—it’s not terribly long at 184 pages—but it felt so much more than that: fully immersive, ultimately troubling and triumphant. Schreiber is an author I’ll be watching.

Details:

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. Iris and the Dead is her debut book.

Publisher: Book*hug Press (June 10th, 2025)
Paperback: 8″ x 5″ | 184 pp
ISBN: 9781771669290

Alison Manley

Website

Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.