A friend recommended this novel, which I put on hold at the library. Then, when I learned that Remarkably Bright Creatures was being adapted into a film on Netflix, my impatience grew. Accidentally, I dropped into my local book store (you know where this is going) and sighed when I picked it up. True confession, I have a weakness for books with sprayed edges. Purchased in a blink of the eye, cancelled my library hold, and started it that evening.

Tova Sullivan works as a cleaner at an Sowell Bay Aquarium in Washington state. A 70 year old widow, she doesn’t need the money, but does the nightly cleaning job to fill her time, time which seems empty these days. Tova has been widowed for five years, but the loss of her son thirty years ago is what haunts her.

Marcellus is a giant, sixty-pound Pacific octopus who was a juvenile rescue and then installed in a tank at the aquarium. He dreams of being free and back in the ocean — “[he] can still taste the untamed currents of the cold open water.” Turns out, Tova and Marcellus, have an inexplicable bond. She talks to him and wrangles him back into his tank when he escapes to explore at night.

There is another important person in this story and it’s thirty year old Cameron Cassmore, a man who has never really grown up or found his place in life. He’s never met his father and his mother abandoned him when he was nine. Cameron has a lot of growing up to do, he’s been fired from every job, never learned to pick up his own socks, and never been a man anyone could rely on. He’s come to Sowell Bay to try and find his father and learn the secrets of his past, all while hoping what he finds will profit him financially.

Remarkably Bright Creatures tells each of these characters stories separately at first. Marcellus tells his own in short pithy chapters and the wise old octopus turns out to play an unusual detective in discovering answers to Tova and Cameron’s past. Don’t worry, the Marcellus narrations don’t feel at all contrived or anthropomorphized — which usually sets my teeth on edge.

Their connections in the coastal town of Sowell Bay, also play a role the story. Tova has her ‘Knit-Wits’, a group of several other women her age who get together once a month to share their lives. She also has the small grocery store owner, Ethan Mack, who cares for her, but she doesn’t want to get too close to him. Cameron finds a relationship with a local woman and he finally starts to shape himself into something resembling a grown man.

I read this book in just a few days, and while a bit uneven in several places, overall I very much enjoyed this unusual, yet compelling novel.

I’ll quote one of the review blurbs from the book:

“Remarkably Bright Creatures is the rarest of feats: a book that manages to be wry and wise, charming and surprising, and features one of the most intriguing and satisfying characters I’ve encountered in fiction in a very long time—Marcellus the Octopus. I don’t know how Shelby Van Pelt managed to make this uncommon tale sing so beautifully, but sing it does, and I defy you to put it down once you’ve started.” – Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of Good Company and The Nest

The film is now streaming on Netflix – but as I just finished the book I may wait a bit to watch it. I don’t want to disrupt the images and characters which linger in my imagination. Although Sally Field cast as Tova, is just as I pictured her.

I have to say this is a debut novel that actually deserves all the hype. I just finished reading The Names and found it unputadownable (and yes, I am going to stick with that word, thank you very much).

The story opens with Cora who’s torn about which name to give her newborn son on his birth certificate. When she gets to the registry office, the story splits into three parts, following what their lives could’ve looked like had she named her son one of three names: Gordon (after her abusive husband), Bear (yes, like the animal), or Julian (classy, artistic).

Each name leads to an entirely different life, not just for the newborn, but also for Cora, her daughter Maia, and a constellation of relationships which change and morph with every choice.

Continue reading The Names by Florence Knapp

I read this beautiful novel when it first came out in 2015 (a gift from my sister) and somehow never kept any notes about it. I remember inhaling it in two or three evenings and putting it on my shelf as a definite keeper book. I also recall it was beautiful, romantic, and full of mystical symbolism – ahh the Irish.

Then, the other night I watched the fairly recent film adaptation starring Pierce Brosnan, Helen Bonham Carter, and Gabriel Byrne (great cast right?)

Continue reading Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams

I chose this short Christmas novella with the perfect cover during a cold and windy night over the holidays.

Brief but breathtaking, Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and is set in the days leading up to Christmas.

Bill Furlong is living a quiet, simple life in Ireland. He’s a happy man and dotes on his wife and five daughters. They have enough to eat and aren’t living on credit. The town has known hard times, factories are closing, and people are being laid off. Mr. Furlong is making ends meet by delivering coal and firewood to the townspeople.

Continue reading Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Once I finished The Correspondent, I was reminded of another epistolary novel which I once started but never finished. So, I unearthed Letters from Yellowstone and finished it over the next two evenings.

In the spring of 1898, A. E. (Alexandria) Bartram—a spirited young woman with a love for botany—is invited to join a field study in Yellowstone National Park. The study’s leader, a mild-mannered professor from Montana, is less than pleased to discover that A.E. is actually a woman.

Once he and the other scientists overcome their shock, they forge ahead on a summer of research and adventure. They move from Mammoth Hot Springs to a camp high in the back country. They struggle with weather, rugged terrain and each other. As they make their way collecting amid Yellowstone’s beauty, the group is conflicted by differing views on science, nature, and economics.

This compelling story of a woman botanist and the assorted characters she meets during her Yellowstone summer drew me in from the beginning. And while some of the letters do slow down the pace, Ms. Smith does an admirable job with the epistolary format, language and manners of that time period,

Letters from Yellowstone contains bits of humor and much excitement, but most interestingly, it’s also a love letter to the joys of botanical discovery, as well as a thoughtful reflection on environmentalism, Native American displacement, and feminism at the dawn of a new century.

N.B.: The book does a wonderful job introducing non scientific readers to the wild flowers, plants, trees and wildlife of Yellowstone ~~ which can be viewed online at the National Parks Service websites.