Clam Down

“These are poignant, sometimes tragic glimpses of a life. But they also read as strikingly fresh… . The story it tells, of emotional change and growth, is a human one—which is precisely what makes it so moving.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)“Clam Downis a balm for our algorithmically determined lives; it’s not feeding us what we already want, it’s delivering on what we didn’t know we needed.”—San Francisco Chronicle“An inventive and emotionally compelling study of the contradictory impulses to connect and to hide.”—Vulture“Hiding in your shell, in Anelise’s words, ​‘to become silent when one is in pain,’ is often presented as something shameful. In exploring when this behavior is adaptive, Chen welcomes humor, dignity, and curiosity.”—The New Haven Independent“A dreamlike, albeit carefully studied, tale exploring introversion, hardening one’s exterior as a means of self-protection and reliance … A poignant and wholly original memoir of liberation through confinement.”— Kirkus Reviews“‘Genre-bending’ is, perhaps, an overused descriptor, but Anelise Chen’s memoir of navigating the aftermath of divorce as a reclusive bivalve is among the best of the bunch.”—Literary Hub“Chen’s surreal tone and dry humor … elevate this above similar tales of self-discovery. For readers willing to take the plunge, it’s a treat.”—Publishers Weekly“Chen’s genre-defying memoir turns her mother’s innocent typo—an exhortation to ‘clam down’—into an investigation of her own ‘clam genealogy’—that is, the family history and forces that led her to retreat into her shell following a divorce—as well as what we can learn from those most cloistered of sea creatures.”—The Millions“In a genre-bending memoir on divorce, Anelise Chen dives into history, biology and emotional transformation in a book that defies comparison.”—SheReads“Chen presents … a personal yet expansive discourse about physical and psychic freedom, the burden of choice, and the consequences of stagnation.”—Booklist“Full of heart and humor, expansive curiosity and gritty intimacy, this is a book that will stay with me forever—for its wild pulse, its compassion, its humility, and its abandon; for its gut-renovation of the first-person and its veins full of wonder.”—Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters“A marvelously funny and affecting memoir that reads like no other.”—Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch“A modern love story embedded within a metafictional review of animal-metamorphosis tales placed within a cautionary environmental fable enclosed by an immigrant family’s saga.”—Eugene Lim, author of Search History“A candescent, transporting metamorphosis from reluctant bivalve to woman.”—Lisa Hsiao Chen, author of Activities of Daily Living“Ingenious, hilarious, and deeply moving, Chen’s work beguiles us, defies easy categories, and manages to be both wide-ranging and profoundly intimate.”—Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward

Anelise Chen is the author of the novel So Many Olympic Exertions, a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She is a 5 Under 35 Honoree from the National Book Foundation. Chen is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at Columbia University. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her family.