Monica Drake Livres

Set against the backdrop of the Oregon Zoo, the narrative explores the lives of four women grappling with motherhood, identity, and personal aspirations. Sarah, an animal behavior expert, yearns for her own children, while Georgie struggles with the challenges of new motherhood and her husband's escapism. Dulcet embraces her unconventional career in sex education, and Nyla fights to protect her daughter from destructive influences. Together, they discover that the bonds formed through friendship can be just as vital as those of family.

Clown Girl lives in Baloneytown, a seedy neighborhood where drugs, balloon animals, and even rubber chickens contribute to the local currency. Against a backdrop of petty crime, she struggles to live her dreams, calling on cultural masters Charlie Chaplin, Kafka, and da Vinci for inspiration. In an effort to support herself and her layabout performance-artist boyfriend, Clown Girl finds herself unwittingly transformed into a "corporate clown," trapping herself in a cycle of meaningless, high-paid gigs that veer dangerously close to prostitution. Monica Drake has created a novel that riffs on the high comedy of early film stars — most notably Chaplin and W. C. Fields — to raise questions of class, gender, economics, and prejudice. Resisting easy classification, this debut novel blends the bizarre, the humorous, and the gritty with stunning skill.

Fiction. Short Stories. Women's Studies. Following her acclaimed novels Clown Girl and The Stud Book, Monica Drake presents her long-awaited first collection of stories. THE FOLLY OF LOVING LIFE features linked stories examining an array of characters at their most vulnerable and human, often escaping to somewhere or trying to find stability in their own place. These stories display the best of what we love about Monica's writing the sly laugh-out-loud humor, the sharp observations, the flawed but strong characters, and the shadowy Van Sant-ish Portland settings. "What can I say about Monica Drake's stories? They are brilliant, sure. They are hilarious, yes. Each one is a marvel. But more importantly-they are raw and awake and full of life. At the center of each one is the bright beating heart of what literature can be: Relevant, unusual, entertaining, fascinating, unique. These are not characters-and Drake's is not a voice-that you can ignore or forget."—Pauls Toutonghi"