Clown Girl
An introduction by novelist Chuck Palahniuk and a rubber chicken on the cover promise lots of nervous laughs for Drake's dark debut. The tale revolves around Nita (aka Sniffles the Clown), who inhabits Baloneytown, a depressed, crime-infested metropolis where residents peer warily out their windows when a cop car drives by. Nita aspires to high art but finds herself caught in a vicious cycle of corporate clown gigs that creep ever closer to prostitution. She misses her boyfriend (and fellow clown) Rex Galore, who has gone off to interview at Clown College. And now her dog has gone missing, her relationship with her housemates is on the skids, and the only friend she has left is a golden-haired policeman who is surprisingly concerned about her well-being. Drake, who teaches at Pacific Northwest College of Art, renders rich, sinewy prose (with heady references to Chaplin, Kafka, da Vinci, and the like), but her offbeat subject matter and plot would play better as a short story. - Allison Block (Booklist)
Comments
I read this book 90% based on Chuck Palahniuk writing the forward. I figured, I like his books, if he likes this one, then I must like it too.
The thing is, it wasn't bad, not at all. But it didn't really pick up until 150 pages or so into the book. A lot of bad things happen and pile up on top of each other to this one character, and there's plenty of character building, and the imagery is quite good, but the plot just kind of meanders.
If you can borrow this from a friend, great, do it. But I'm not sure that it's worth buying brand new.
150 pages?! Thanks for the heads up.
its good, the writing is sound. it's a little slow, yeah. but lets not fault it for being slow. its one of the best books by a woman author i have read in a while.
I thought this book was pretty good. It is a little slow as others have mentioned, but it has likable characters and I really dug all the clown stuff.
Having worked for the circus I'm fond of anything circus-y
The imagery in this book is absolutely amazing.