Monica Drake – författare

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.From the Hardcover edition.

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.

Nita, la payasa protagonista de esta novela, vive en el barrio de mala muerte de Declivetown donde las drogas y la chatarra son parte de la moneda local.Aunque está rodeada de delincuencia, trabaja cada día para alcanzar el sueño de ser una artista reconocida y poder vivir de su arte en las filas de Payasos Sin Fronteras.Inspirándose en la obra de grandes artistas universales como Charlie Chaplin o da Vinci, ensaya sus números y prepara sin descanso la adaptación clown de La metamorfosis de Kafka, la obra con la que espera ser lanzada al estrellato y salir de las calles y de la pobreza.Sin embargo y, a pesar de todos sus esfuerzos, Nita tropieza una y otra vez con sus pequeñas desgracias domésticas que, además de minarle el ánimo, parece que la dirigen irremediablemente a tener absurdos malentendidos con la policía local.