Remarkably Bright Creatures
Shelby Van Pelt
Ecco
Fiction, General Fiction/Mystery
Themes: Anthropomorphism, Cross-Genre, Museums, Seafaring Tales
***+
Description
Tova's been a hard worker all her life, and sees no reason to stop just because she's in her seventies. Though most
of her dwindling circle of friends have long since retired, she still spends nights cleaning at the Sowell Bay Aquarium
on Puget Sound, keeping the glass clean and the floors mopped and the trash can bags tucked just so. Besides, being at
the aquarium is as close as she can get to the memory of her long-dead son Erik; he was a teen working at the ferry dock
next door the night he disappeared over thirty years ago, and she's never understood why he left the ticket booth and
took a dinghy out on the Sound in the middle of his shift. The night Tova finds the aquarium's aging Pacific Giant
Octopus, Marcellus, out of his tank and tangled in extension cords, she makes a new friend of sorts with the
invertebrate. But as her age and loneliness begin to catch up to her, Tova realizes maybe she's clung to the past for
too long. Maybe it really is time to retire, to downsize, to leave Sowell Bay and her memories, good and bad,
behind.
Cameron's in his thirties, going on teens. After his addict mother abandoned him with an aunt when he was not even ten,
he's struggled. Now he's lost yet another job, been dumped by yet another girlfriend, and his best friend Brad -
expecting his first child - has quit their indie rock band, about the only thing Cameron thought was going well in his
life. He's sick and tired of being stuck, but can't seem to stop sabotaging himself and blaming others. When he finally
comes into a box of old memorabilia from the mother he barely remembers, Cameron stumbles across a clue to the father
nobody ever told him about: a picture of his teen mother with a real estate magnate from up near Seattle, in a place
called Sowell Bay, along with a class ring. Surely, if this Simon Brinks really is his dad, he'll be more than able to
pay back the eighteen years of back child support he got away with by not being there all through Cameron's
childhood... or maybe he'll pay just to have an inconvenient deadbeat son disappear and not ruin the sterling
reputation he appears to have built for himself. Either way, Cameron decides he has nothing to lose.
In the Sowell Bay Aquarium, the octopus named Marcellus endures captivity, even as he feels his body wearing out. For
all their great intelligence and abilities, Pacific Giant Octopuses only live about four years, and his time is almost
up. He does what he can to stave off boredom, sneaking out of his tank at night to explore (and snack in other tanks)
in what time he can manage before suffering the Consequences of being out of the water, finding trinkets in forgotten
corners for his hidden stash, studying the humans who visit and work at the aquarium, but he never really had a friend
before the cleaning woman freed him from the tangled power cords. He knows a secret that might help the old woman in
her own declining years... but can he figure out a way to tell her before his time is up?
Review
For a book with the title Remarkably Bright Creatures, I expected more intelligence from the characters,
particularly the human ones. Unfortunately, despite some promise in the setup, the story relies a little too much on
people being stubborn and willfully stupid, or being interrupted right on the cusp of any major revelation. Tova's an
old woman set in her ways and fossilized in her own grief, still bleeding from the unhealed wound of her son's death
(moreso than for the loss of her husband many years later). When her estranged brother passes away and she experiences
a fall that reminds her that she's wearing out herself, she takes it as a sign to get her own affairs in order...
while being willfully and deliberately blind to any option other than the somewhat extreme one she sets up for
herself, particularly options involving Ethan, the owner of the town grocery store who couldn't be more obvious about
his interest in widowed Tova if he spelled it out with tomatoes in the produce aisle. (If only he'd use actual
words...) Cameron is supposed to be a hurt, confused man, evoking sympathy from the reader, but comes across as a
selfish twerp, a moody teenager at heart despite his age, incapable of even basic survival skills and utterly
unwilling to look himself in the mirror and take any responsibility at all, always blaming his absentee mother or his
unreasonable bosses or the sky for being blue when his own actions explode in his face and damage not only himself
but innocent bystanders. He carries a clue to his real father, but deliberately ignores and misreads and flails and
tantrums until it's almost too late. As for Marcellus... well, he's the smartest of the bunch, for all that he's not
in it quite as much as I might have hoped, him being my favorite character of the lot. Marcellus also has the excuse
of not being human to explain his actions (or lack thereof), though at least he consistently tries.
As for the storyline, it does a decent job establishing the setting and its cast, but can wander and wallow in the
characters' inertia. Also, as mentioned, it leans on people not listening, not paying attention, or being interrupted
(or simply doing something profoundly dumb, at least once - and not just Cameron) just to draw things out for another
few dozen pages. At least the octopus has an excuse for not just spitting out what he knows. Needless to say, a lot
of the story ultimately ties into the mystery of the fateful night of Erik's disappearance (a fact the reader gets
long before anyone in the book clues in), but the idea that none of this came out at all in thirty years felt a bit
stretched, especially in a town established to be as small and gossip-heavy as Sowell Bay. The ending isn't bad, and
brings some sense of closure, though it felt like it took a bit too long to get there, and I'm not sure I totally
bought some of the transformations. It wasn't a complete disappointment, and has some high points and decent moments,
but given the hype and talk around this book, I'd hoped for something a little better.