Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine, but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight tentacles for his human captors-until he forms an unlikely friendship with Tova.Įver the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in the Puget Sound over 30 years ago.Īs she works, Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Pick it up for the octopus, stay for the loving and lovely descriptions of small-town lives and the way we make connections.For fans of A Man Called Ove, a luminous debut novel about a widow’s unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus reluctantly residing at the local aquarium-and the truths she finally uncovers about her son’s disappearance 30 years ago.Īfter Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Fortunately, Ethan, a friendly shopkeeper who is secretly in love with Tova, lends Cameron a helping hand… and things spiral from there in a book that is warm, profound, sometimes sad, often funny and deeply hopeful. Meanwhile, a smart but adrift young man, Cameron, journeys north from Stockton, enduring a series of small catastrophes that might set some kind of a new record for bad luck and bad decisions. At the core of her life is a devastating mystery–how and why did her eighteen-year-old son disappear, thirty years ago? Tova, a reserved woman, holds her grief and many other fears close to herself, until events begin to unfold that she can’t control. Tova has her own issues, and her own circle of human friends. Marcellus has watching Tova for a long time, but now the two become… well, friends. This doesn’t stop him from regularly escaping from his tank and wandering the aquarium, which is how he makes the personal acquaintance of Tova, who cleans the place after hours. Marcellus is a smart creature (although he resents being called a “smart cookie”), and he is aware of his own mortality–in fact, he is counting down the months and weeks of his lifespan. Marcellus is very smart, very observant and speaks excellent English, so there’s no reason in the world why this book should not open with him addressing us in first person, and sharing his point of view about the various humans he knows.

Marcellus is a giant Pacific octopus who lives in captivity in a small aquarium in the small Pacific Northwest town in which the book is set. Like others who have reviewed it or discussed it, I’m going to start with the octopus, because, after all, he starts the book.

A capsule review of Shelby Van Pelt’s novel Remarkably Bright Creatures: this book is an absolute charmer.

Book review remarkably bright creatures