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The Stud Book

Monica Drake

SYNOPSIS

In the hip haven of Portland, Oregon, a pack of unsteady but loyal friends asks what it means to bring babies into an already crowded world.

Sarah studies animal behavior at the zoo. She’s well versed in the mating habits of captive animals, and at the same time she’s desperate to mate, to create sweet little offspring of her own. Georgie is busy with a newborn, while her husband, Humble, finds solace in bourbon and televised violence. Dulcet makes a living stripping down in high school gyms to sell the beauty of sex-ed. Nyla is out to save the world while having trouble saving her own teen daughter, who has discovered the world of drugs and the occult. As these friends and others navigate a space between freedom and intimacy, they realize the families they forge through shared experience are as important as those inherited through birth.

A smart, edgy and poignantly funny exploration of the complexities of what parenthood means today, Monica Drake’s second novel demonstrates that when it comes to babies, we can learn a lot by considering our place in the animal kingdom.

Director/Editor
Dara Van Dusen

Cinematographer
Magnus Borge

Produced by
Film 14, Adam Cushman, Joshua Duggan, Rocco Rivetti and Dara Van Dusen

REVIEWS

Monica Drake has written a take-your-breath-away good, blow-your-mind wise, crack-your-heart-open beauty of a novel. The Stud Book is a smart, sexy, comic, compassionate, absorbing, and necessary story of our times.

Cheryl StrayedAuthor of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things

Monica Drake has written a take-your-breath-away good, blow-your-mind wise, crack-your-heart-open beauty of a novel. The Stud Book is a smart, sexy, comic, compassionate, absorbing, and necessary story of our times.

Cheryl StrayedAuthor of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things

The Stud Book is a dreamy, druggy, sexy concoction–no surprise coming from the author of Clown Girl. I was instantly consumed by its evocative exploration of motherhood in the Pacific Northwest. Monica Drake’s vision of the world is like no other.

Jami AttenbergAuthor of The Middlesteins and The Melting Season

Hilarious, heart-wrenching, and stylistically brilliant, The Stud Book is about who we are and why we matter–about our stubborn, beautiful drive to make life, love, a world inhabitable for those who come after us. If women carry whole worlds into unknown futures, Monica Drake is the mapmaker of the human condition.

Lidia YuknavitchAuthor of Dora: A Headcase

Monica Drake is one of the smartest, funniest writers working today and The Stud Book moves from farce to satire to tender melodrama without missing a beat.

Chelsea CainAuthor of the Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell series

What’s to say? Laughter is the highest praise, and Monica Drake makes me laugh. The Stud Book is so funny it could make a dog laugh.

Chuck PalahniukAuthor of Fight Club

Monica Drake takes a scalpel eye and an acid wit to the hearts and flowers of motherhood. What’s left when she’s done is a portrait of desire and danger and need and greed. Very funny, very bright, very unsafe.

Kevin CantyAuthor of Everything and A Stranger in This World

The Stud Book is a wild ride full of dark humor…Drake reminds us that we aren’t so different from our animal ancestors: Many of our desires are, and have always been, primal. What we choose to do with these desires, well, that’s what makes us human.

Book Page

Drake teases out the intersection between theories on parenthood, evolution, sex, and reproduction. The result is a relevant and original story about life and selfworth in an increasingly crowded world….Drake’s sharp wit and contemporary take on ecology and adult life make this an entertaining and thought-provoking read.

Booklist
the stud book author

Monica Drake

Monica Drake holds an MFA from the University of Arizona and teaches at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her debut novel, Clown Girl, is published by the amazing indie press, Hawthorne Books, and has won an Eric Hoffer Award as well as an IPPY. It’s been translated into Italian, and recently optioned for film by the brilliant Kristen Wiig (SNL, Bridesmaids). For more visit: www.monicadrake.com