Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt follows Tova, a widowed woman in her seventies who takes a night-shift cleaning job at a small-town aquarium, and Marcellus, the giant Pacific octopus who lives there and narrates portions of the story. A third character — Cameron, a directionless young man drifting toward the Pacific Northwest — gradually enters the picture and connects to Tova in unexpected ways.

At its core, the novel is about the disappearance of Tova's son thirty years earlier and the slow unraveling of what really happened. It explores grief, connection, and the quiet ways lives intersect across generations — and species.