The Premise

Some friendships cross more than species.

Tova Sullivan has cleaned the floors of the Sowell Bay Aquarium every night since her husband died. The work keeps the silence at bay, and the silence is loud — her son Erik vanished into the cold water thirty years ago, and no one ever found out why.

Then there’s Marcellus: the aquarium’s brilliant, escape-artist giant Pacific octopus, who has quietly decided that humans are mostly hopeless. Mostly. He makes an exception for Tova. And as the two form a wordless, improbable bond, Marcellus begins piecing together the one secret Tova has spent three decades trying to understand.

Tender, funny, and full of heart, it’s a novel about grief, second chances, and the family we find in the most unexpected places.