Review by Lindsey Grudnicki
For the reader, it’s “the vulnerability of letting a story inside” (“Diving In”). For the writer, it’s the vulnerability of letting a story out, of putting your mind and heart and body on the page for a stranger’s eyes.
In her debut essay collection, Chelsey Clammer transforms that vulnerability into a bold, beautifully unapologetic honesty that dares the reader to take it all in – the love and hurt, the struggle and triumph, and, most importantly, the discovery. BodyHome is her journey, and Clammer invites you to sit down with her as she recounts the road she’s traveled – to defining herself, to finding peace, and to accepting the home that has been hers all along.
With her authentic, no-nonsense voice at the heart of each essay, the collection reads as Clammer’s testimony to the fact that coming to terms with your own truth is a process that demands all of you. To inhabit your body fully, you must look at all of the scars and know their origins; to heal your heart, you must pick up every broken piece and turn it completely around, investigating the source of the break and deciding whether that fragment might fit back in place or if it’s best to let it go and recreate. This kind of self-confession is at times amusing, but more often it is painful and difficult and terrifying. Clammer offers an account of that deep internal battle, one that stretches over years, takes on many forms, and shapes her relationships, choices, and identity. Her work chronicles the realities of addiction, mental illness, loss, and regret. Her essays bring the reader into the confusion and rage of the moment then ask them to bear witness to the clarity and recovery that comes from the passage of time and forgiveness.
It speaks to Clammer’s skill as a memoirist that she never leaves her readers as alone as she was dealing with these circumstances. Her compassion for others broadens her perspective and deepens her exploration of what it means to live and love. In BodyHome, she illuminates her own struggles by documenting the hardships of those around her. In “Howls,” Clammer seeks to understand her own pain by reflecting on her father’s suicide, her grandfather’s death, and the agony of a total stranger; in “Linda,” she learns that “it’s okay to scream” as she befriends and comforts a schizophrenic woman. Her ability to relate to those around her enriches her stories and ultimately drives her craft.
Though Clammer’s subjects are serious, her writing is often playful and rebellious. She experiments with language, structure, and form, testing her range and creating a lively voice that readers will relish. She also injects her own brand of humor into each piece, pointing out life’s ironies, highlighting the absurd and ridiculous, and charming you with her frank, engaging commentary. Just take a look at “The Family Jewels” – Clammer’s delightfully strange essay on the complicated sexual history of her family – for a glimpse of the author’s fondness for laughter and celebration of humankind’s eccentricities.
It is Clammer’s musings on memory, however, that captured me as reader. Her collection is strong from start to finish, but her thoughtful reflections on youth, family, and the things we carry with us speak to her curious mind, courageous heart, and undeniable talent as a writer. In “On Ecstasy,” she gives us a drug-clouded heart-to-heart between her and her father, and brings us with her to the revelation that it was his voice, not his words, that really mattered and stuck with her. In “Matchbooks, Pennies,” Clammer questions those things that stick with us, those relics (or burdens) we bear without fully understanding why. She examines the memories that enrich her life – a favorite hankie, well-loved books – as well as those that add mental clutter despite the innocence of the objects that remain. BodyHome explores how we choose to define ourselves and what we let define us, and Clammer uses her own quest for self to showcase how to move from letting the past hold our lives in an unhealthy bondage to bursting free in a body that listens to you and lives at its fullest capacity.
“I grasp myself with compassion for my perceived imperfections,” Clammer writes in the collection’s title piece. “In the same way I do not resent the drips coming from the faucet, the way the pipes in my apartment growl with noise, the floorboards that creak under my weight, I love the home of my body for what it is: a home with flaws, with scars, with fat where there used to be negative space. And it is a cozy home, a soft home that provides comfort, a home in which I can live.” From childhood to adulthood and from hurt to healing, BodyHome is about growing into yourself, learning the hard way, accepting the person you are as well as the person you’ll become, and – of course – deciding to live, compassionately and comfortably, in your own body.
Chelsey Clammer is the recipient of the 2014 Owl of Minerva Award. She has been published in The Rumpus, Essay Daily, The Water~Stone Review and Black Warrior Review (forthcoming) among many others. She is the Managing Editor and Nonfiction Editor for The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review. Clammer is also the Essays Editor for The Nervous Breakdown and Senior Creative Editor of www.insideoutediting.com. Her first collection of essays, BodyHome, was released from Hopewell Publishing in Spring 2015. Her second collection of essays, There Is Nothing Else to See Here, is forthcoming from The Lit Pub, Summer 2015. You can read more of her writing at: www.chelseyclammer.com.
To order your copy of BodyHome, please visit: http://www.hopepubs.com/pubbuy.html#bodyhome.
