Clam Down

Clam Down is a wondrously unusual memoir about a woman who, in the midst of mourning her divorce, retreats into her shell and renegotiates her relationship to solitude, shame, and connection—from an acclaimed 5 Under 35 National Book Foundation honouree.

In this unique memoir, a woman withdraws into her shell following her divorce and must navigate the pleasures and perils of a closed-up life. It is a transformation fable from an acclaimed 5 Under 35 National Book Foundation honouree.

"A marvel and a delight... This is a book that will stay with me forever." - Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters

We've all heard the story about waking up as a cockroach—but what if a crisis turned you into a clam? After the dissolution of her marriage, a writer is transformed into a "clam" via typo after her mother keeps texting her to "clam down." This funny yet unhelpful command forces her to contemplate what it means to "clam down"—to retreat, hide, close up, and stay silent. Idiomatically, we are said to "clam up" when we can't speak, and to "come out of our shell" when we re-emerge transformed.

In order to understand her path, the clam examines examples of others who have embraced lives of reclusiveness and extremity. Finally, she confronts her own "clam genealogy" to interview her dad, who disappeared for a decade to write a mysterious accounting software called Shell Computing. By exploring his past to better understand his decisions, she learns not only how to forgive him but also how to move on from her own wounds of abandonment and insecurity.

Using a genre-defying structure and written in novelistic prose drawing from art, literature, and natural history, Anelise Chen unfolds a complex story of interspecies connectedness, in which humans learn lessons of adaptation and survival from their mollusk kin. While it makes sense in certain situations to retreat behind fortified walls, the choice to do so also exacts a price. What is the price of building up walls? How can one take them back down when they are no longer necessary?