Slabtown Scribbler Gets Her Bunny Ears

Clown Girl, the debut novel of Portland writer Monica Drake, has been named Best Book of 2007 by Chuck Palahniuk in the December issue of Playboy Magazine. Click here to read an excerpt from the book, published in a past issue of WW.

Palahniuk, with whom Drake participated in Tom Spanbauer's Portland-based “Dangerous Writers” group in the early '90s, is best known as the author of Fight Club. In his introduction to Clown Girl, he teasingly describes Drake as his “arch enemy”, claiming that whenever his writing was good, Drake's was better.

In addition to the nod from Playboy, Drake's book has garnered 2007 top-ten listings from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Oregonian. It was a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award for the Novel through the Oregon Book Awards.