Motherest is the debut novel from Kristen Iskandrian; it’s the achingly realistic first-person tale of 18-year-old Agnes, who leaves a suburban home that is pickled in grief (her brother has died suddenly, and her mother abandons the family) and embarks upon her first year at college. It’s the early ’90s, and while the details may include Nirvana and flannel shirts, clear-eyed Agnes describes the eternal coming-of-age ambience on campus. “The thing about college is the bodies,” she writes in a letter to her mom that she never intends to send. “They are everywhere. I feel like we were all sent to one place to figure out how to be in one, what to do with the fact of them, and how close and how far to move them in relation to one another. I try to imagine what we might look like from space, clustered and worrying, how we would probably only be discernible in clumps, the solitary ones not registering on the infrared screens or whatever the technology is.” Motherless Agnes writes philosophy papers, works in the school cafeteria and experiments with boys and a close friendship with a girl named Joan. When Agnes winds up in a predicament that derails her expected path, she finds her way through it with the same wise voice that distinguishes the entire vivid, enjoyable novel. Parnassus welcomes Iskandrian to talk about the new book. DANA KOPP FRANKLIN