Author Guide · Contemporary Fiction
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Van Pelt gave up writing as a teenager, went into financial consulting, and only came back to it in a continuing-education class in Atlanta around 2013, burned out and looking for something else. She started writing in the voice of a giant Pacific octopus because she had been watching videos of them escaping their tanks and thought they were funny. That octopus became Marcellus, the novel became Remarkably Bright Creatures, and it has sold more than two million copies. It is still her only book. A second is about half written, and she says it will not have an octopus in it.
By Lisanne Swart · 1 novel · Contemporary Fiction · Literary Fiction · Updated September 2026
Van Pelt on Marcellus, and on writing the difficult second book
Quick facts about Shelby Van Pelt
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Tova Sullivan cleans the Sowell Bay Aquarium at night, thirty years after her teenage son disappeared from a boat on Puget Sound. Marcellus is the giant Pacific octopus in tank number six, he is nearing the end of his four-year life, he escapes constantly, and he narrates roughly a third of the book himself. He works out what happened to Tova's son long before she does, and cannot tell her.
It should be unbearable and it is not, because Van Pelt refuses to make Marcellus cute. He is contemptuous of humans, bored, and running out of time, and the impatience of an intelligent creature who cannot speak is what makes the ending land. A book about loneliness that is genuinely funny.
Short fiction and essays
Before the novel she published fifteen pieces in small magazines and anthologies. The one worth reading now is the essay, which is her own account of writing the book:
- Lessons Learned from a Year Listening to the Fictional Octopus in My Head — Literary Hub, May 2022 — the essay on inventing Marcellus and on what writing from an animal's point of view is actually for.
- Carry On — Beneath Strange Stars, 2020. Pushcart-nominated.
- Crush Season — Hope: An Anthology of Hopeful Stories and Poetry, 2021.
- Bratwursted — Funny Pearls, 2020.
- Senior Anatomy — Suddenly and Without Warning, 2022 — her most recent published short fiction.
- The second novel — Roughly half written as of May 2026, described by Van Pelt as being about “a messy family and a cat”. No title, publisher or date announced, and she has confirmed there will be no octopus.
Shelby Van Pelt's Writing Style: The Animal Narrator, Done Properly
The whole book rests on one decision: giving a third of the narration to an octopus, in the first person, without making him a mascot. Marcellus is impatient, superior and dying, and Van Pelt keeps him at exactly the right distance — intelligent enough to understand what the humans cannot say to each other, alien enough that you never forget he is not one of them.
She has been clear about why it works. “Writing from an animal's point of view, anthropomorphizing as we can't help but do, isn't about the animal,” she wrote. “It's about seeing ourselves with fresh eyes.” The octopus is a device for showing you the people, and the moment you accept him the book becomes about Tova.
The rest is patient, warm, small-town realism with a rotating point of view — Tova, Cameron, Ethan, Marcellus — and a plot that the reader solves long before the characters do. That gap is deliberate and it is where the tension lives: you are waiting for people to arrive at something you already know.
It is also worth saying what it is not. It is not literary fiction pretending to be commercial, and it is not sentimental. Tova's grief is thirty years old and unresolved, the octopus dies on schedule, and nothing is fixed for free.
Shelby Van Pelt Books in Order
There is only one: Remarkably Bright Creatures, published by Ecco in the United States on 3 May 2022 and by Bloomsbury in the UK the same spring. Anything else you see listed under her name is a short story or essay in a magazine or a multi-author anthology, not a book of her own.
A second novel is in progress. As of May 2026 she described it as roughly half written, about “a messy family and a cat”, and confirmed that it will not feature an octopus. No title, publisher or publication date has been announced, so treat any date you see online as speculation.
Where to start with Shelby Van Pelt
If you have never read her
→ There is only one book, so: Remarkably Bright Creatures. Go in knowing as little as possible about the plot.
If you have read it and want more of her
→ The Literary Hub essay on writing Marcellus is short, free and genuinely good on why animal narrators work.
If you want to see it first
→ The Netflix film came out in May 2026 with Sally Field as Tova and Alfred Molina voicing Marcellus. Read the book first — the octopus is better on the page.
If it was the loneliness that got you
→ My best fiction books of all time list has the novels that do the same thing at greater length.
If it was the grief
→ Books about family secrets — what a family knows and does not say is the whole engine of this novel.
Frequently asked questions about Shelby Van Pelt's books
Has Shelby Van Pelt written a second book?
Not yet. Remarkably Bright Creatures (2022) is still her only published novel. She has confirmed that a second is in progress — as of May 2026 she described it as about half written and following “a messy family and a cat” — but no title, publisher or publication date has been announced. She has also said it will not feature an octopus.
Is Marcellus the octopus based on a real octopus?
Not a specific one. Van Pelt has said she invented Marcellus after watching internet videos of octopuses escaping their enclosures and thinking there was a character in there. She then spent time observing octopuses at aquariums while writing. Marcellus is a giant Pacific octopus, a species genuinely native to Puget Sound, and the novel draws on real octopus intelligence and their short lifespans, but he is invented.
Is there a Remarkably Bright Creatures film?
Yes. Netflix released a feature adaptation on 8 May 2026, directed by Olivia Newman, with Sally Field as Tova Sullivan, Lewis Pullman as Cameron and Alfred Molina as the voice of Marcellus. Van Pelt was an executive producer and appears in a cameo during an open-mic bar scene. The film received three 2026 Primetime Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Movie and Outstanding Lead Actress.
How did Shelby Van Pelt come to write the book?
She had given up creative writing as a teenager and worked as a financial consultant. Burned out, she took a continuing-education fiction class after moving to Atlanta around 2013, and the octopus character came out of that class. She wrote the novel over several years while raising two small children, publishing flash fiction and short stories in small magazines along the way.
Where is Remarkably Bright Creatures set, and is Sowell Bay a real place?
The novel is set in Sowell Bay, a fictional town on Puget Sound in Washington State. It draws on Van Pelt's childhood in Tacoma, including Point Defiance Park. The Sowell Bay Aquarium is likewise invented, though the giant Pacific octopus that lives in it is a real Pacific Northwest species. Tova was modelled on Van Pelt's grandmother Anna, a lifelong Tacoma resident.
“Writing from an animal's point of view isn't about the animal. It's about seeing ourselves with fresh eyes.”
Shelby Van Pelt, Literary Hub, May 2022. If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
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