Iris Has Free Time

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. (May)