Clown Girl: A Novel

by Monica Drake

Other authorsChuck Palahniuk (Introduction)
Paperback, 2007

Call number

FIC DRA

Collection

Publication

Hawthorne Books (2007), Edition: 1st, 336 pages

Description

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.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member talimckell
I guess Drake was making up her own genre—clown noir—or maybe I’m just not familiar with it. If she was, then she could look to Katherine Dunn as the foremother of the genre, but a mother whose teat she needs to keep suckling…as in, she’s not there yet.It was neither subtle nor flagrantly
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funny. I felt like it needed to be one or the other, or a juggling act of both. I actually think it would be quite good as a movie. Then everything she tells us would be shown instead. Basic synopsis: Clown Girl stays at home in Baloneytown while boyfriend Rex Galore moves to the big city. At home, she finds everything she was looking for in herself and her friendly neighbor cop.Her thesis: Corporate America is keeping us down. Oh, wait, we're keeping ourselves down. Stop blaming society!If Drake had fully explored the idea of a kind of clown noir, I think it could have been something. But instead she tries to make her novel more than chick lit in a clown costume by adding allegorical superstructures unsuccessfully.
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LibraryThing member WittyreaderLI
When I started reading Clown Girl, I had high hopes. The book had an interesting premise and it was silly. But that is all it was...silly. It never really got that deep or THAT funny. Yes, the idea of a woman who goes around posting up notices that her rubber chicken has gone missing is amusing,
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but after that, it kind of lost its charm. The book itself was hard to follow and after about 175 pages, I lost interest.
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LibraryThing member kjarcand
Sniffles (real name, Nita) is a clown that has fallen on hard times in Baloneytown. Her boyfriend, Rex Galore is off for an interview at Clown College, leaving her alone to find her way. While he is gone, she dreams of becoming a famous art performance clown, but is instead stuck working fairs
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tying balloon animals and biblical images, trying to make an honest dollar. She works constantly at an art piece she hopes to premiere someday: A silent version of “The Metamorphosis”. Her world is divided into very set social scenes: The clowns, the cops, the rich folk who rent the clowns, and the rest of the trailer trash.

While performing one afternoon, Nita has a miscarriage. Without insurance, she is back on the street quickly until she suffers a panic attack and lands herself back in the hospital at the hand of Jerrod, a too kind cop. The doctors tell her she has a heart condition, and send her home to do a 24 hour urine collection to see if they can find anything out. On the way home, she sees Jerrod and because he is a cop, she runs. Cops always mean trouble for clowns.

When it is found out the Nita and Jerrod have been spending time together, Nita is thrown out of her home. Her landlord forbids any cop to be seen around their home, and rightly so – he’s a drug dealer and a burnout. Jerrod shows up in her life more and more, always there to bail her out when things get hard. Nita begins to wonder why he is being so kind to her, and whether or not he’s just another guy looking for a clown date.

In this strange world filled with coulrophobics and coulrophiles, Nita is stuck trying to find her way as a performer. Should she sink to the bottom and become an S& M clown? Should she stick to her path and create her own one-of-a-kind act? The lines between clowning and prostitution get more blurred, day after day as she waits for Rex’s return.

Nita pines for Rex to come home, over glorifying their love and their relationship until one afternoon, he just appears. Confused over her relationship with Jerrod, Nita quickly tries to solve her problems by throwing all of herself back to Rex. She is met at first with love and passion, but Rex quickly tells Nita that he has this wonderful idea for his audition at Clown College: A silent version of “The Metamorphosis”. Betrayed and baffled, Nita’s world which seemed to be falling into place becomes a mess one more time. Once more, she must start over and reevaluate her clowning life.

Opinion: Monica Drake took her time with this novel, it being her first, and it shows. The connections between characters as only slightly predictable, but are always well explained. She shows an interesting reflection of how we can take all of these cultures and sub cultures and blur the lines to make them what we want. The clowns are outcasts that the rich need for entertainment. The rich use them for everything, yet still fear them and their kind.

Near the end, Nita removes her clown make up, and hardly even recognizes who she has become. There is constant talk between Jerrod and Nita about how they are in costume (her, a clown, him, a cop) all the time, putting on an act that is more important than any act they know. Everything they have is a prop, there to illicit a response, to secure their future (him, a gun, her, a rubber chicken). Who are the underneath the image they display?

Drake has a very honest voicing through her novel, making her main character very believable. You feel for Sniffles, and want the best for her. You cringe when things go wrong for her and you root for her when things start going right. Jerrod comes across as a bashful, yet down-to-earth type. Every time he is brought back to Sniffles, I was excited to see what would happen. The glorification of Rex Galore really showed how easy it is to get lost within your love for someone and how human it is to feel entirely devoted to something you’ve really only idealized. The heartbreak and betrayal are real and the feeling this book evokes make it worth adding to your library.

Rating: On a scale of 1-5 stars, this book is a 4.5. It took me awhile to get passed the veil of Baloneytown and realize that this book is set in modern times, but in a world full of literary metaphor. Once I got into the sync of things and accepted a little suspense of disbelief, this book really got enjoyable. I loved the format of it: titled chapters. It made each section feel like its own episode in Nita’s topsy-turvy life. Drake did a great job really making her unbelievable world believable, which made me take yet another fun look at the world we live in. It’s easy to see how Chuck Palahniuk and she are such good friends.
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LibraryThing member gkleinman
Monica Drake creates a world where clowns just are part of the scenery. Her main character is extremely well drawn and her struggle to find her muse, live her life and relate to others is superb. A strong debut book. I'll absolutely pick up whatever Drake does next.
LibraryThing member lildrafire
Clown Girl is not a goofy funny novel, but it isn't supposed to be, regardless of what preconceived notions you get from the title and the picture of the rubber chicken (Plucky!) on the cover. What Clown Girl is is a great first novel from a very talented writer. I can't wait to read more of what
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Monica Drake has to offer. Thank you, Chuck Palahniuk, for recommending this gem.

Nita has decided she is a clown. Not a commercial sell out, but a real artist, and she's modeling herself after her absent boyfriend, Rex Galore. The problem with Nita's aspirations is that she isn't a very good clown, artistically or otherwise. She refuses to give up her dream, however, even to the detriment of her own well-being. This is the label she's applied to herself. And that's what this book is really about--the labels we subscribe to, the perceptions we have of who we are and who we want to be. It is about how others see us, our motivations for our actions and the implications of those actions. This novel has depth, and that depth makes a simple story about an unfortunate clown girl an excellent read.
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LibraryThing member MJC1978
Well done, Monica Drake!

While this book turned out to be absolutely nothing like what I expected (I mean, there's a rubber chicken on the cover!), it was lovable just the same. The whole thing is just delightfully strange - from the neurotic main character, to the concept of clowning as an art
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form...just fantastic.
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LibraryThing member keneumey
A brilliant and hilarious book. I know that not everyone shares my sense of humor, but I disagree strongly with most of these negative reviews. Especially those that say Clown Girl just limps around town feeling sorry for herself. This is a girl with talent and ambition. She's constantly trying to
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improve her situation; she just doesn't always make the right choices.

I've never read anything like Clown Girl. I loved the character and I loved the book.
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LibraryThing member yougotamber
Tried reading this twice and couldn't finish it, rubbish and I'm confused why Pahalniuk gave such a great introduction for her. He talked her up and she fell way short.

Awards

Oregon Book Awards (Finalist — 2007)
Eric Hoffer Book Award (Winner — 2008)

Pages

336

ISBN

0976631156 / 9780976631156

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