Dork Whore: My Travels through Asia as a Twenty-Year-Old Pseudo-Virgin »

Iris Bahr is a critically acclaimed actor, writer, and director. Best known for her recurring stint on Curb your Enthusiasm, Iris also just starred in the comedy Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector and the CBS pilot Big Bang Theory. She has performed stand-up comedy across the country and guest-starred in numerous TV shows, including Friends, The Drew Carey Show, and King of Queens. Born and raised in the Bronx, Iris relocated to Israel with her mother at the age of 12, before returning to the U.S. to study at Brown University. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

Fresh out of the Israeli Army, twenty-year-old Iris Bahr decides to follow the footsteps of many before her and backpack through Asia. Only unlike the average traveler, she has more in mind than just seeing the sights: she is on a desperate mission to lose her virginity.

Dork Whore is a fresh and funny memoir about a young woman whose quirky personality and embarrassing neuroses always seem to get in the way of her getting what she wants. As Iris lands in hotel rooms in Bangkok, rides scooters out of opium-fogged compounds hidden in the jungle, and antagonizes an impromptu tour group in Vietnam, she begins to realize that the greatest obstacle she'll have to overcome isn't losing her virginity, but coming to terms with the reasons for her need to be accepted. Poignant, hilarious, and always original, Dork Whore is a remarkable mix of bawdy humor and heartbreaking moments, witty intelligence and touching personal discoveries. Iris Bahr has given us an unforgettable coming-of-age tale about how a young woman finally learns how to trust others—and her own judgment.

Publishers Weekly

Newly discharged from Israeli military duty and in search of "emotio-physical release after three years of puke-green uniforms," 20-year-old Bahr backpacked from Bangkok to Saigon to Delhi in order to experience life as well as (less successfully) find a proper lover. "My poonani has become my own personal Gaza Strip," she notes in this witty though uneven memoir, "unable to get past the partial penetration stage." However, when Bahr sets out with a fellow Israeli named Boaz, whom she met in a Tel-Aviv Backpacker Store, she's already been deflowered indifferently by a Moroccan paratrooper. In Bangkok, Boaz deserts her, and Bahr befriends another Israeli from her flight, Yoni, who is intent on visiting a brothel, where the narrator is hit by a banana catapulted from the dancer's vagina. Bowel problems plague our narrator, from Bangkok to Delhi, and from time to time she does let slip a few touching details of her life, such as the breakup of her parents' marriage and her brother's retardation. Bahr (an actress who has appeared in Curb Your Enthusiasm and Cable Guy) tries to ingratiate herself with the reader with her sarcastic digs at herself and others, but she offers little by way of description or history about the places she's actually visiting. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.