Iris and the Dead by Miranda Schreiber

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.

Praise for Iris and the Dead

“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

Press Coverage

Most Anticipated: Our 2025 Spring Fiction Preview —49th Shelf

“I can’t overstate how much I value attachment to whatever it is that speaks through us while being creative”: I’ve Been Meaning to Ask Miranda Schreiber —Send My Love to Anyone

June 2025 Reads for the Rest of Us —Ms. Magazine

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Miranda Schreiber —rob mclennan’s blog

Miranda Schreiber’s music playlist for her novel Iris and the Dead —Largehearted Boy

Excerpted: Iris and the Dead —All Lit Up