Monica Drake explains her fascination with Ally Sheedy's mom.

While some of the most banal books find their way to getting published, truly exciting work often falls victim to the "we don't know how to market this" ideology. Case in point is Monica Drake and her novel, "Clown Girl."

Released by a Portland, Ore. press called Hawthorne Books, this highly stylized slapstick tragic-comedy about a lovelorn clown named Sniffles living in a place called Baloneytown started a fast buzz even before it was released.

But this is no overnight sensation.

Drake has been struggling with the book for ten years. Every time she felt sure it was going somewhere, it stalled. She didn't taste full success until she let her inner-clown loose on a last ditch rewrite.

Here's how Drake's journey went, timeline-style.

1965: Monica Drake, born in Eugene, Ore. Her mother, Barbara Drake, is a writer and teacher. Her father, Albert Drake, is a college professor who writes books about car culture. She spends her childhood in Michigan and Oregon.

1976: Drake reads the book, "She Was Nice to Mice" by Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy (aka actress Ally Sheedy, then 12) and learns Ally's mother, Charlotte Sheedy, is a literary agent.

1984-85: Drake buys a cheap outfit, takes a dance class and finds work as a clown.

1991-93: Begins taking classes with author Tom Spanbauer, held at Tom's kitchen table. One night Chuck Palahniuk, another student and then-unpublished writer, walks in. The two form a bond and laugh at each other's jokes.

1993-96: Drake attends University of Arizona, takes classes with Joy Williams, Elizabeth Evans and Dagoberto Gilb. Joy Williams says, "Ah yes, white space! The writer's false friend." Drake can never look at white space the same way again.

1996: Moves back to Portland and is shocked by the soaring housing prices. Lives in cheapest digs she can find, in the middle of gang territory, works at five community colleges with 185 students for sub-poverty wages. She starts to write the novel "Silverfish," which later turns into "Clown Girl."

1996: Her dog, a Schipperke, swallows a bagel whole. The bagel expands in his gut until the dog can't walk. In the middle of the night, during a big bust outside, the house surrounded by cops and criminals, the dog's bowels explode. Drake has to take the dog out, stand in the grass, while cops point their guns in the street. Fodder for the novel! This scene goes right in, though is later cut.

1997: Drake gives up her teaching job and takes a temp job making copies for a mortgage company. She gets a home loan! Buys a tiny 1800's farm house and says goodbye, for now, to what will soon become the foundation of the novel's Baloneyville.

1999: Drake finishes her book and gets her dream agent, Charlotte Sheedy, but the manuscript is only sent to a few publishers before getting shelved.

2000: Drake acquires a new agent who is confident she can sell the manuscript. It is sent out to more publishers but none take it on. The agent is dropped two years later.

2000: Meets writer Kass Alonso. He, too, is working on a novel.

2000: The Portland Mercury hires Drake as the Books Editor. She holds that position until late 2001.

2001: In a five-week stretch, Drake writes the hundred page novella, "Bones in the Garden," which is published as an issue of Seattle alternative newsweekly, The Stranger. The story is laid out to look like a regular issue of the paper, but each article is a continuation of Drake's fiction.

2001: Drake gives a copy of "Silverfish" to Tristan Egolf, author of "Lord of the Barnyard." Egolf writes to Drake weeks later: "You have a stylistic flair which runs as close to entirely original as anything I've seenI have no doubt that it will, and should, reach not only publication but considerably wide acceptance as well." Egolf commits suicide in 2005.

2003: Begins rewrite of novel, now under the title "Clown Girl." The protagonist, Nita, becomes Sniffles the clown, and much of the book, especially the language, changes too. Yowza!

2003: Drake suffers two miscarriages. Bloody and messy, the miscarriages go into the book, because, she says, it's all material.

2004: Drake marries Kass Alonso, author of the novel, "Core." Gives birth to a daughter. Sells a house, buys a house, only blocks from her old gang-troubled crib. The area is slightly gentrified.

2005: She rewrites "Clown Girl."

2005: Drake's second agent decides against representing "Clown Girl."

2005: A new agent takes on "Clown Girl" with enthusiasm.

2005: (Seven months later.) The new agent changes her mind.

2006: She sends the manuscript to Rhonda Hughes and Kate Sage at Hawthorne Books. Hawthorne buys it three days later.

2006: "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk writes the introduction for "Clown Girl" and playfully calls Drake his "arch enemy."

2007: Chuck Palahniuk promotes "Clown Girl" on his Web site. First printing sells out immediately. Publisher rushes into second printing.

2007: "Clown Girl" gets an A- in Entertainment Weekly. Two major publishers contact Hawthorne Books about buying reprint rights. Hawthorne kindly rejects the offers. Production studios call to discuss film possibilities. A teenage girl writes Drake a letter from England, asking, "When will you tour here?" A man writes to say he loves the book, but has to struggle to read it in English. He asks if it might come out in French soon. Others write in, and "Clown Girl" has found her audience. As Sniffles says, "Ta-da!"

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Kevin Sampsell is asap's Book Pusher, reporting on the word scene from the inside. Sampsell is an event coordinator at Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. He also runs a micro empire called Future Tense Publishing.

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