One of the draws of Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures is that it starts as a diary of Marcellus, a sizable Pacific octopus living in an aquarium in a fictional coastal town of Sowell Bay, located in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. And while the plot of the New York Times Bestselling novel, which has been adapted into a film and is currently playing on Netflix, expands to its protagonist Tova, a widow, who works in the aquarium, and other characters, the pages with the extremely smart and observant Marcellus remain the highlight till the end.

Octopus Enthusiast

Over a Zoom call, Shelby, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, US, informs that her social media feeds on octopus convinced her to use it as a protagonist in the novel. “I don’t really have any background in science, but when I was learning to write fiction, as I didn’t have a formal training in writing, at the same time, I had become an octopus enthusiast after watching videos of them on the Internet. I was convinced that would be a really fun voice to incorporate; a voice that is so mysterious, obviously so intelligent, but so kind of unknown to us. With their extremely high level of emotional intelligence, they sort of feel human,” said Shelby, who has won titles like Heartland Prize for Fiction and the McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize from The Writer’s Center.

Marvellous Marcellus

Shelby’s Marcellus is smart; he invents plans to sneak out of his aquarium; he is perceptive and understands Tova and her mental and emotional struggle without saying a word; he knows his worth and is full of aspirations. All these characteristics and more make him like any other pet companion. But are octopuses as smart as projected by Shelby, or is it creative fiction? “Everything that Marcellus is doing in the book, in his physical world, is possible for an octopus to do, like escaping through a very small space. Octopuses are kind of weird in the sense that their bodies are gelatinous, except that they have one little hard cartilage. So, if that can fit through a space, then they can fit their entire body through the space. They can amazingly liquefy their body, which is so wild,” exclaims Shelby, who further informs that octopuses have been demonstrated by science to be extremely curious.

“Octopuses in captivity will definitely have humans that they prefer and don’t prefer. And so, I took a lot of those things and brought them into the story,” adds Shelby who also turned to fiction to essay the character of the octopus. She also agrees that it’s a great place for a fiction writer to live in the intersection of something mysterious that we don’t quite know everything about and something that is well-studied and documented.

Pets and their judgment

While Marcellus is adorable andany reader would want to be Tova and connect with the big boy in the aquarium. Shelby, a parent to cats, believes octopuses in general are difficult pets. “There are a few people that I follow on social media who document octopuses in captivity, and I can say that they’re escape artists, for one thing. So that’s a big challenge. Also, they require constant stimulation or attention as they get bored very easily. The other difficult thing is that they don’t live very long,” she said. A giant octopus like Marcellus lives for four years. Her cats, in a way, inspired the book and she would find similarity in their gaze and often imagine their tails as tentacles of octopuses.

Animals, whether they’re cats, dogs or birds in a fictional novel, add depth and also a very new perspective to our lives. Talking about the novel narratives that a non-human character brings to a plot, Shelby shared, “Writing from the perspective of outside humanity gives you liberty to make observations and statements about humanity that you don’t get if you’re writing from a human perspective. You get to judge humans a little bit, and I think it’s really fun to question some of the ways that we do things.”

Grief and anxiety

Shelby’s debut novel is heart-warming and weaves in themes of loneliness, companionship, grief, healing and connection. “It felt very natural to make a story about loneliness, about sort of being stuck because, here’s this solitary octopus who’s stuck in captivity and so is Tova in her own world,” said Shelby. “I think grief is something that everyone goes through at some point. I think loneliness is a buzzing topic, at least over here in the US, lately. I started writing this book 10-12 years ago, and I noticed that a lot of people, regardless of their age or demographic, were dealing with this knowing feeling. Despite being connected over social media and having Internet, a lot of people still feel very isolated,” shared Shelby, making us note that it was also her own anxieties that find impressions in the book. “At the time I was writing this, I was a new mom. And I think a lot of times, we writers mine our brains for our biggest anxieties. And that’s what we tend to write about. The worst thing that could happen to me would be to lose one of my children. It’s just the things that keep me up at night are the things that I sort of do to my characters, so that I can explore those anxieties.”

Taking inspiration

The characters of Remarkably Bright Creatures are reflections of people Shelby has met or interacted with in real life. While Marcellus is a mix of people and includes the author’s judgmental and attention-hungry cat, Tova is most directly inspired by Shelby’s Swedish grandmother, whom she was close to. “You know, she’s a tiny little tough woman. She was always staying busy. She loved to clean. She was very sweet and loving, but she sort of wore this emotional shell around her. You never really knew what she was feeling. She sort of always, always said that ‘everything was just fine’.”

Cameron’s character is more like Shelby in her 20s. “I’m not as extreme as Cameron, but I had my moments when I was adjusting to adulthood. Also, I found, at times, a connection between Tova and Marcellus.”

Netflix and more

Shelby’s writing process is spontaneous, and she doesn’t want to remain limited by any genre. “I tend to write about things that I can’t stop thinking about,” she makes us note. Her next book is about a family that is dealing with a lot of challenges that life has thrown at them. Shelby is ecstatic about the book’s Netflix adaptation. “Sally Field is playing Tova, which is amazing because she’s such an accomplished actress, and she’s literally the perfect Tova. Also, she looks so much like my grandmother, who inspired Tova. Such a perfect casting,” she adds.