Remarkably bright creatures : a novel

Title:

Author:

Summary:

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. 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 Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

General Note:

Read with Jenna.

Edition:

First Harper Large Print edition.

Physical Description:

518 pages (large print) ; 23 cm

Genre:

Detective and mystery fiction.

Large type books.

Subject Term:

Octopuses -- Fiction.

Widows -- Fiction.

Human-animal relationships -- Fiction.

Mothers and sons -- Fiction.

Missing persons -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Harper Large Print, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers,

Publication Date:

2022

ISBN:

9780063242401

Publication Information:

New York, NY : Harper Large Print, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2022]

Call Number:

LP VANPELT

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003683771	New Large Print Fiction	VANPELT Shelby	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable
33607003683797	New Large Print Fiction	VANPELT Shelby	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

A New York Times Bestseller!

A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!

"Remarkably Bright Creatures is a beautiful examination of how loneliness can be transformed, cracked open, with the slightest touch from another living thing." -- Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

A cross-species friendship helps solve a pair of decades-old mysteries in Pelt's whimsical if far-fetched debut. After Tova Sullivan's husband dies, she takes a night job as janitor at an aquarium, where she enjoys talking to the sea creatures. She's particularly fond of Marcellus, a giant octopus who shies away from most human attention. But when Tova finds Marcellus out of his tank and helps him back to safety, he becomes fond of her. Meanwhile, Cameron Cassmore comes to town looking for his long-lost father and joins Tova on the night shift, disrupting her routine. However, the two soon realize that Cameron's mother, who disappeared after leaving him with an aunt when he was nine, and Tova's son, who died after falling off a boat decades earlier, might have known each other. Marcellus, who lived in the sea before his capture, is the only creature who knows for sure. Pelt imbues Tova, Cameron, and Marcellus with pathos, but her abrupt cycling between their perspectives can be disorienting, and her no-frills prose is ill-suited for the anthropomorphic conceit at the story's core. While the premise intrigues, this fantastical take on human-animal connection requires a bit too much suspended disbelief. Agent: Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency. (May)

Library Journal Review

DEBUT Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living in the Puget Sound's Sowell Bay Aquarium, is running on borrowed time as he nears the end of his life. He is befriended by Tova, the 70-year-old widow who cleans the aquarium and shines the glass of Marcellus's tank. Tova still grieves the disappearance of her only child Erik 30 years earlier, and the more recent death of her husband. Hundreds of miles away in California, Cam, a rock musician who's lost his band, his job, and his girlfriend, finds the Sowell Bay High School class ring of his long-gone mother and heads out to track down the father he never knew. Cam's hard-luck life follows him north, and he eventually crosses paths with Tova when he is hired to take over her duties as she recovers from a workplace injury. Marcellus--a thief, escape artist with a mission, and brilliant observer of human behavior--narrates his chapters with a whip-smart wit born of his nine brains, three hearts, and the impatient urgency of wanting to help his beloved Tova before his time runs out. VERDICT Poet and short story writer Van Pelt has written an irresistibly wonderful, warm, funny, heartbreaking first novel, full of gentle people (and one octopus) bravely powering through their individual scars left by lives that have beaten them up but have not brought them down.--Beth E. Andersen