{"product_id":"clam-down-a-metamorphosis","title":"Clam Down: A Metamorphosis","description":"PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • In this wondrously unusual memoir, a woman retreats into her shell in the aftermath of her divorce, and must choose between the pleasures and the perils of a closed-up life—a transformation fable from an acclaimed 5 Under 35 National Book Foundation honoree.\n\n“A marvel and a delight . . . This is a book that will stay with me forever.”—Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters\n\nONE OF CHICAGO TRIBUNE’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: VULTURE, ELECTRIC LIT, SHELF AWARENESS\n\nWe’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.” The funny if unhelpful command forces her to ask 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 reemerge, transformed.\n\nIn order to understand her path, the clam digs into 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 excavating 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.\n\nUsing a genre-defying structure and written in novelistic prose that draws 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?\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 1984801848\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: DBV.1984801848.VG\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Very Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Chen, Anelise\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: Pages are clean with no markings. May show minor signs of wear or cosmetic defects  marks, cuts, bends, or scuffs  on the cover, spine, pages, or dust jacket. May have remainder marks on edges.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Dream Books Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41631196938298,"sku":"DBV.1984801848.VG","price":9.79,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/6011\/0138\/files\/1984801848-0.jpg?v=1788490508","url":"https:\/\/shop.dreambooksco.com\/products\/clam-down-a-metamorphosis","provider":"Dream Books Co.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}