A sharp-edged satire of contemporary motherhood from a comic novelist on the rise In the hip haven of Portland, Oregon, a pack of unsteady but loyal friends asks what it means to bring babies into an already crowded world. Sarah studies animal behavior at the zoo. She’s well versed in the mating habits of captive animals, and at the same time she’s desperate to mate, to create sweet little offspring of her own. Georgie is busy with a newborn, while her husband, Humble, finds solace in bourbon and televised violence. Dulcet makes a living stripping down in high school gyms to sell the beauty of sex-ed. Nyla is out to save the world while having trouble saving her own teen daughter, who has discovered the world of drugs and the occult. As these friends and others navigate a space between freedom and intimacy, they realize the families they forge through shared experience are as important as those inherited through birth. A smart, edgy and poignantly funny exploration of the complexities of what parenthood means today, Monica Drake's second novel demonstrates that when it comes to babies, we can learn a lot by considering our place in the animal kingdom.

The Stud Book

Literature & Fiction

Drake, Monica

Humor & Satire

Hogarth

Sarah studies animal behavior at the Oregon Zoo. An expert on the mating habits of captive animals, she is increasingly desperate to create sweet little offspring of her own. Georgie is busy navigating the terrors of new motherhood—from misplaced postpartum painkillers to the potential sublimation of her identity—while her husband finds solace in bourbon and televised violence. (Dead girl on the screen? Take a shot!). Dulcet, defiantly married and childless, makes a living stripping down in high school gyms to sell the beauty of sex-ed. Nyla is out to save the earth while possibly losing her own teen daughter to the world of drugs and the occult. As these friends navigate a space between freedom and intimacy, they realize the families they forge through shared experience are as important as those inherited through birth. A smart, edgy, and poignantly funny exploration of the complexities of what parenthood means today, The Stud Book demonstrates that when it comes to babies, we can learn a lot by considering our place in the animal kingdom.

Dramas & Plays

Random House Publishing Group

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.

Clown Girl: A Novel

Hawthorne Books

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.

The Folly of Loving Life

United States

Future Tense Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Drake, Monica. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Drake, Monica

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Drake, Monica. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Stud Book

The Stud Book

Clown Girl: A Novel

The Folly of Loving Life