By Robert McCool

What a delightful book! "Remarkably Bright Creatures" (HarperCollins, 2022) by a debut author, Shelby Van Pelt. This book has been on the New York Times bestseller list numerous times since its publication and the author won a Reader's Choice Award for Best Debut Writer. 

It remains one of the most read pop-fiction books and was the first unanimous selection by Ada Book Club members for 2025. I have to thank Jill Simmons for bringing this book to our attention.

First off, it has the most unique voice for a narrator and commentator on human behavior. Marcellus McSquid (inappropriately named on the plaque above his tank, as he is a Giant Pacific Octopus, not a squid.) opens the book with a commentary on his conditions and the visitors beyond his glass tank. He tells you of his intelligence (for example, his ability to read) and you need to be aware of this throughout the novel as his personal life is explained in too few commentaries.

He is also far too clever, with the ability to escape from his tank at night and roam the aquarium looking for snacks from the other exhibits, and searching for traces of bright, left behind jewelry, keys, and anything human and bright. He is a bit of a hoarder. He also feels an emotional attachment to the night janitor for releasing him from being tangled in a phone charger cable and saving his life.

That night janitor who mops his floor nightly is the second character, a seventy-year-old woman of European descent named Tova who came to America as a child.

After that the author introduces her other characters in a random, rather frustrating manner. But she does that purposely as it builds the story in the way that keeps one wondering, "Who is this person?"

An exception is the second primary and universally condemned character named Cameron, whose development and eventually realized purpose is revealed later in the book.

Tova's life is defined by grief over losing her eighteen-year-old son in a drowning while he is out sailing on Puget Sound, off the Washington Coast, and the further loss of her husband to cancer. She carries that grief always and her world is perceived through a sadness that refuses to go away, even with her women friends in the Knit-Wit Club.

But this novel is about connections. The friendship between Tova and Marcellus that powers the story full of meaning, and the connection between Tova and Cameron that provides the mystery and importance in Tova's world.

Cameron, from the hated state of California, takes over the night janitor duties after Tova falls from a stool while reaching into Marcellus' tank; she hurts her foot and must go on medical leave. Still, she comes to the aquarium every night to visit Marcellus, and more importantly to teach Cameron the proper way to clean the building. Thus a relationship develops between them, and eventually Cameron learns of Marcellus' importance to the elderly woman and his remarkable intelligence.

It is Marcellus who begins the true mystery in the story by bringing Tova items he's discovered, such as her house key, and then a piece of jewelry tie to the mystery of her son's death. Ruled a suicide by the Coast Guard, Tova cannot accept this finding and has wondered about it ever since the accident.

Other minor characters come into to the story in supporting roles, and can be dismissed except for the owner of the grocery store, a Scotsman who cares about Tova in a romantically hopeful way, and a thirty-four-year -old woman and paddle-board shop owner who helps Cameron develop into a decent sort instead of a scoundrel.

The story takes place in a fictional town called, "Sowell Bay." Now I spent ten years living in that area of the Pacific Northwest, including in the real locations Van Pelt mentions. I traveled there to become a boat builder and also to attend wooden boat school in Port Townsend, Washington. I also lived in Anacortes, in Skagit County Washington, the location universally accepted by readers as the fictional Sowell Bay. It has all the elements described in the novel, but for the author’s confusing reference to Snohomish County Washington.

Shelby Van Pelt grew up in Tacoma, Washington, which is far south of Seattle but located also on Puget Sound. She states that she has taken many Washington ferry trips, which are the best and cheapest entertainment in the whole state, cruising through the San Juan Islands and seeing the majestic spender of the Cascade Mountains. The only place I've ever experienced such a breathtaking experience is in Alaska, as I delivered many of my own on the weekly barge, and my commercially built Nordic Tugs to Alaska and demonstrated how to use them and take care of them. I've caught salmon in the Little Sue River ( and fell off a boat there into the freezing water), and had freshly caught Pacific Salmon served to me as it was filleted on the deck of a tug. I had fresh Halibut (the best that you can eat) and followed whales off the coast of an Alaska beach where they run to feed and students camp out all summer long. 

But nothing compares to watching a pod of Orcas feeding and dancing among the waves  outside of Anacortes, a sight you can often see from an evening ferry trip. Or the way salmon will attack a "herring ball" where the small fish conglomerate in a ball near the surface and stir the water viciously. Or the brutal shock of diving into the freezing water of the Sound as I used to do off the rocky shore at Larrabee State Park near to Bellingham. It's intense, and delightfully makes one feel more alive. Or soaking naked in mixed company in the volcanic hot springs of Mt. Baker or the National Forest south of Seattle. That water is blistering, but welcome after climbing the snowy side of the mountain, and the area around the springs is like a tropical rain forest (it actually IS a rain forest there). But my favorite, as it was Tova's son, was sailing on the Sound with nothing but the breeze you learn to control in silence except for the splash of waves against the hull. And (at the risk of being edited or offending some readers) making love to your special spouse while out at anchor at night with nature telling you to be alive fully.

Now, Van Pelt has received some negative reviews about this novel, and being a reviewer myself I read these to discern what criticism is tossed about, some by people who have no professional writing history (such as myself, but I'm working on that). Some criticize the age of Tova, saying she acts like an 80-year-old instead of a 70-year-old. I myself am 70 and I understand back pain, the weariness that grief and sadness creates in a person, especially one lasting as long as Tova's. Some criticize the confusion in the actual location of the aquarium. Some even criticize the way the writer develops her story, without appreciating her mystery presented by an octopus. I find these reviewers petty and vain.

This is a solid book in its own way; I recommend it to all fiction readers. It's a joy to hear Marcellus' views and attempts to communicate with an unexpected friend. You will even learn a bit about the wonder of the Giant Pacific Octopus and other octopuses (not octopi, that's wrong). You may even get the opportunity to visualize the amazing world of the Puget Sound. Disregard questions on the location of the fictional town of Sowell Bay, and why the author develops the story in her own way. This is an impressive debut from a younger writer who dislikes writing. One I highly recommend. Enjoy!