“A brilliant and refreshing blend of cleverness and irony that made me laugh out loud, as it revealed the true strangeness of things we consider normal.”
—Simon Van Booy
“I was sitting here reading Droll Tales, trying to figure out why I was laughing. Contemporary books rarely make me laugh. It has happened four times, I think. Then it struck me. I’m laughing at her book because she’s a another tough customer who doesn’t laugh at most supposedly funny books either, which is why she must write them herself. And thank goodness!”
—Walter Kirn
Welcome to the world of Droll Tales, in which reality is a mutually agreed upon illusion, and life is Painful, paradoxical, beautiful, and brief.
“Droll Tales is dark, surreal, and very funny, one of the best combinations a reader could ask for.”
—Roz Chast
"Erudite, original, and surprisingly poignant. . . . An entertainingly eclectic . . . journey through the odder corners of existence."
—Kirkus Reviews
“I flashed on Milan Kundera and David Sedaris, before concluding that Iris Smyles is that rarest of birds, a gifted nut, an eccentric fabulist.”
—John Patrick Shanley
“A Dr. Johnson of artistic conception…The pithy brilliance pours out like water from one of the sculptural fountains that are described… ‘Medusa’s Garden,’ the first piece in this collection, is a seamless masterpiece.”
—The East Hampton Star
“This is the book God would read if God existed. I am in awe of what a great great writer Iris Smyles is.”
—Patricia Marx
“A book of wonders. Brilliant.”
—Frederic Tuten
“It’s her intelligence and tone that make Smyles an enchanting writer — she’s ironic, funny, compassionate, critical (especially of intellectual and artistic pretense). She deliciously sends up self-serving lit crit and nervous pretention… Iris Smyles is an original, planting herself squarely between parody and homage, ridicule and empathy. She’s an artist of the subversive and surreal, who would have and hold on to what’s left in our fractured world of the humane and the artistic.”
—The Southampton Press