The Seattle Post-Intelligencer profiles Monica Drake, whose new novel CLOWN GIRL is being touted as a worthy successor to Katherine Dunn‘s GEEK LOVE. Hawthorne Press has already sold through its first 6,000 copy printing, ordering up another 5,000 on the basis of good word-of-mouth, a Chuck Palahniuk blurb and a glowing review in last week’s ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY.
Drake’s path to publication was circuitous, with two three-year stretches of intense work on the novel, in-between years devoted to other writing (short stories, freelance reviews, a 100-page novella that took over an entire issue of The Stranger in Seattle), plus her regular teaching gig at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in the Pearl District. There was also such consuming personal changes as her marriage to fellow writer Kassten Alonso and the birth of their daughter, Mavis, who arrived 2 1/2 years ago. Add that the final draft sat in the offices of her agent for seven months without going on submission anywhere and no wonder it took some effort for Drake to find a home for CLOWN GIRL.
“Hawthorne has been so supportive of the book that, in retrospect, this is the right thing to have happened,” Drake stresses. “This has been a great experience — they’re 100 percent behind the book, the design is great and I am touring the Northwest. “I’ve had friends with books at New York presses, and they have had no support. There’s this dream of a big New York contract as the ticket to success, but I don’t think it necessarily is.”