Professor Anelise Chen’s New Book ‘Clam Down’ Out in June

By
Andrew Scott
February 03, 2025

Director of Undergraduate Studies and Assistant Professor of Writing Anelise Chen is releasing her new book Clam Down on June 3, 2025 from One World, an imprint of Random House that specializes in the avant garde. The genre-defying work is based on Chen’s time serving as “Mollusk Correspondent” for The Paris Review

Described as a hybrid memoir, the book follows a writer reeling from a divorce and on the retreat. When her mother’s repeated typo-texts implore her to “clam down,” the writer is in fact transformed into a clam. From there, the clam’s journey is one of introspection and exploration, as she examines others who have leaned into reclusion, including her father. 

Clam Down is a marvelously funny and affecting memoir that reads like no other memoir out there,” said fellow author and Associate Professor Rivka Galchen. “Chen’s uncategorizable book is brilliant and unpredictable.”

“From the moment I started reading it, I could hardly put it down,” added New York Times bestselling author Leslie Jamison. “Full of heart and humor, expansive curiosity and gritty intimacy, this is a book that will stay with me forever.”

Clam Down is Chen’s second book, following So Many Olympic Exertions in 2017, for Kaya Press. Her experimental debut, a deep dive into the world of sports, also included elements of memoir, and became a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. In 2019, Chen was named one of 5 Under 35 writers by the National Book Foundation.

Chen’s work has also appeared in The Believer, The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, NPR, and The Village Voice, among several other publications. She was born in Taipei before moving to Los Angeles at a young age, and currently lives in New Haven with her family.