Iris Has Free Time

March 11, 2013
Fresh out of N.Y.U., 20-something dilettante Iris Smyles feels destined for fame and fortune. After briefly considering movie stardom (“it couldn’t be that hard”), she settles on writing, but finds nothing of meaning in her own life about which to write. As she waits for fate to smile upon her, Iris job hops, starting with a disastrous internship at the New Yorker’s cartoon desk (a job chosen because she enjoys doodling, and to which she frequently shows up still drunk from the night before). Her stints as a teacher, T-shirt designer, and sex columnist are all hindered to various degrees by the predictable consequences of her hard-partying lifestyle and incessant navel-gazing. In between life-changing epiphanies, Iris summers in Greece, falls in love a few times, and enjoys an ever-revolving circle of friends. While Smyles writes clear prose, her story lacks a substantial character arc, made more obvious by a chronologically disjointed narrative. Newly hatched urbanites will certainly find common ground with Iris, and fans of cringeworthy humor might appreciate her moxie, but there’s not much here for anybody else. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management.

March 15, 2013
The cover should appeal to all the Sex and the City fans out there: a young, Carrie-like girl with long, curly hair, and wearing a tutu, struts down a crowded New York City sidewalk. But this story about a class-of-2000 NYU grad is more Girls than SATC. Wistfully narrating her story in the first person, Iris Smyles, a girl with intricately designed daydreams, is never short on youthful antics: passing out in the New Yorker's cartoon office as an intern; struggling to become a writer while blogging about her ex's small penis; and subsisting on weird food combinations (deviled eggs made with chocolate syrup). And, of course, there are the men. A slew of ex-boyfriends and regrets and sex litters the landscape as Iris wrestles with the concept of growing up. The novel, which moves back and forth in time, meanders; although frustrating at times, this narrative technique effectively captures Iris' restlessness. Smyles (the author, not the character) depicts a particular moment in timethat awkward place between being a kid and being an adultand the results are often hilarious, often tinged with sadness, but always authentic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)