Metabolize, if Able

by Clay A.D.

Metabolize, If Able is a queer correspondence sent from a dystopian future. Clay AD's hybrid-novel follows the lives of clones and their spawn through medical charts, IMs, self-help meditations, screenplays, and, of course, epistles. For the clones, a corporation controls life and death, sickness and wealth. Corp doctors, or DRs, bring the clones to life and assign them work. But DRs restrict clone reproduction. They pathologize and withhold care. They keep the clones sick. What happens when the clones and their anti-Corp cell turn illness into a weapon? AD’s sci-fi world posits the hope found in collective intimacy & the struggle against state control.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Disability, Novels

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2018

Reviews

[anna marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

the best!!!!!!!!!!!

1st reread =
i cried sm about the care of this book, it's just full of love! the bit about saving pills for ruby!!! i cried!!! clay is just so wonderful.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This feels like the result of Repo! The Genetic Opera and Children of Men having an angry queer baby who decides to take on the medical industrial complex by weaponizing slam poetry and independent cinema.

[Mich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sophomoric, but burns so bright with an ardent ‘there’s no one I’d rather tear everything down with than you (the collective)’-ness that I can’t not give it 5 blazing stars

[Scar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know much i needed this book i have never read a book so healing and refreshing and unique.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly, I want to list some content warnings that aren't obvious from the synopsis, so that anyone casually looking can find them: sexual assault, eating disorders, descriptions of birth. Now to my review:

'Metabolize, If Able' packs a lot into very few pages: it's a story about chronic illness, agency, and structural oppression, told through the assorted emails and musings of a casually queer cast.

With so many themes to cover, it would be all too easy for the 'Metabolize, If Able' to come across as preachy. Instead, while Clay AD's thoughts on the social model of disability and mutual aid are inseperable from the narrative, this is both intentional and overt, as evidenced by - for example - the epilogue and the implausibly near-future setting.

This book is simultaneously a novella, a barely-fictionalised account of the lived experiences of real disabled and queer people, and a tentative, hopeful manifesto. I loved it.

[Nick Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was like one of those new bon iver songs - cool ideas, interesting moments, inventive approach...but more an idea than a song.

I think this author is incredibly original and insightful. I get a little weary with experimentation for its own sake, and Would have enjoyed a more fleshed out and stable structure....but in the moments where this little book takes off, it really soars

[Aislinn Evans]

unconvinced by the screenplay at the end. is it intentionally amateur?

the worldbuilding is great and i like the semi-epistolary form, its a great world to exist in to consider questions of healthcare and late capitalism. would make a thought provoking ttrpg. i enjoyed this but idk that screenplay! put me off ukno

[Nicolas L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love reading a short little book! Helps that it’s good too. The meditations interspersed throughout the plot were realllly good.

Take note of the body.
Reconcile with discomfort as a state.
Metabolize, if able.
Repeat.

He dropped the cooler and a lung hit the pavement. Tammy and I both drew a sharp intake of breath and ran towards home.

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good! Loved the layers, the inventiveness, the writing.