@jerseysouthmomchess , I don’t have the book in front of me, either, but I suspect you may have heard the mention of the “boom” on the boat and thought “explosion.” I think in this case it was the wooden bottom of the sail that came over and hit Erik in the head or knocked him out of the boat. Not a sailing expert here …
Boom (sailing) - Wikipedia.
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I thought the same thing @jollymama . After the boom description, I assumed they were in a sailboat.
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I read the book a while ago so haven’t joined the discussion. I forgot most of the characters, to be honest. It read like a fairy tale. There’s an anthropomorphic octopus, a wise old woman, a foolish young man, unrequited love, misunderstandings, journeys, secret familial relationships, and a cat. I’m especially glad that it ends well for the cat.
I did remember the son presumably dying as a result of a sailing accident and tracked down the passage near the end. It’s not definite, but assumed.
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Love this thought.
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I forgot to include hidden treasure and a magic ring.
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I think Marcellus as a human would be pretty much what he is as an octopus: a curmudgeon on the outside, a softie on the inside. Marcellus and Tova are both straightforward, no-nonsense personalities, which helped them click. Also, despite a seemingly reserved, conservative nature, Tova is open to the sort of magical thinking required to develop a relationship with an octopus.
Tova never felt that the Knit-Wits understood her. “The Knit-Wits have been her friends for years, and sometimes she feels as if she’s a mistaken jigsaw piece who found her way into the wrong puzzle” (p. 19). But she has “chemistry” with Marcellus, and to extend the puzzle analogy, he is the one that helps her see how everything fits together.
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I think what happened to Tova with the Knit-Wits often happens in real life. I was friends with parents of my daughter’s classmates for a dozen years. When my daughter went off to college, I realized I had nothing in common with these people and the friendships died. It can be difficult to sever long term ties, but can be for the best.
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I too have such a group of friends. They are generally moms of younger son’s HS friends. We’ve been meeting every first Saturday of the month for breakfast for 16 (!!) years. Yet I rarely see them otherwise, rarely speak to them on the phone. Not real friends.
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I loved that the unbelievable friendship between Tova and Marcellus felt believable(in the story). They understood each other. I was very happy when Tova released Marcellus into the ocean.
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I finished listening to the book but was holding off on posting while I tried to put together my impressions. I prefer to read books so audiobooks aren’t my thing. I did enjoy hearing the various accents, and the character portrayal through intonations.
I really liked the story in spite of the magical realism and cotton-candy sweet tone. I have the book coming in soon so I may actually skim through it and see if I missed anything significant.
I couldn’t tolerate Cameron in the first half of the book. He improved in the second half. Overall, the picture I have in my head is that of a charming, feckless (love the chance to use that word) young man packing a grievance against the world for the raw deal he got from his parents, especially his mother, forgetting to be grateful for the wonderful people he had in his life, and completely disregarding how many others had worse deals than he. His character improved as the story went on, whether those changes would be permanent if his life circumstances hadn’t also changed is hard to say.
Tova was an odd mix for me. The older woman who felt guilty about leaning on her friends and others because she would be more needy than helpful. I think she started withdrawing from the Knitwits as her friends started transitioning from mothers to grandmothers — their lives having a continuance which she didn’t have made her feel as if she didn’t belong. I also felt that she was portrayed as older than her age — isn’t 70 the new 60?
The parting of ways between Tova and Lars was unrealistic for me. Do siblings really drift apart that easily without one or other making an effort to keep the relationship.
I can buy Lars as a plot device for many things — teaching Eric to sail, introducing Tova to Charter Club(?), and for Tova to start thinking about selling her house. I was curious as to why Tova had the house and the Dala horses and other keepsakes from their parents. Did Lars not want/keep anything?
Avery’s talking down a suicide as a device to explain what went wrong on the day of Eric’s death was a bit far-fetched for me. I guess that Marcellus isn’t capable of stitching together that part of the story for Tova, smart as he is, so the author had to explain it through Avery.
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Yes, very far-fetched. But in a novel where the octopus figured out the mystery and popped out of his tank to strategically place Cameron’s license for Tova to find, it fits in.
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As a sailor, I got the whole “boom” thing right away. Getting hit in the head with a fast moving boom could easily knock you unconscious and overboard. But what about Daphne? Was she there? Did she see it happen? Why didn’t she tell anyone/try to get help?
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Fair point! 
I suppose my issue is that having swallowed a talking, genius, octopus, I want a more creative (magical) explanation on all unsolved pieces.
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I found this very difficult to accept as well – perhaps even moreso because they were the only the two siblings. I was sure there was going to be a backstory of an estrangement. When there wasn’t, I wondered if perhaps the drifting was one more consequence of grief – that Lars never knew quite what to say or how to comfort Tova, and Tova didn’t feel like socializing anymore, even with family.
[p.s. “feckless” - 
]
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I have also been a sailor (DH gets seasick so I rarely sail these days.) My theory is that Daphne and Erik were doing something unsafe - perhaps drugs? - and Daphne panicked.
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Good interview with Shelby Van Pelt, with some unusual questions: Interview With an Author: Shelby Van Pelt | Los Angeles Public Library
Here’s one:
What is the question that you’re always hoping you’ll be asked, but never have been? What is your answer?
I’m surprised I’ve never been asked, not directly anyway, why Marcellus doesn’t just leave the aquarium. Especially since one of the most well-known-on-the-internet octopus escape artists, the infamous Inky from New Zealand, does exactly that. Finds a drain. Goes home.
And the answer, of course, is that Marcellus is afraid of change, just like the rest of the characters in the book. In earlier drafts, I had him ruminating on the possibility of escaping in a more direct way, but I ended up cutting those sections back because I don’t think he’s quite self-aware enough to realize that he feels that way. It’s one of the things that lets us, as humans, find common ground with him, I think.
And an interesting bit of trivia about Van Pelt’s life:
Do you have a favorite band t-shirt that would devastate you if lost or mistaken for a rag?
Not exactly, but in a similar vein, I would be heartbroken if anything happened to my Boston Marathon jacket. Qualifying had been a goal for years, and I finally made the mark in 2012, only to run in 2013 with the bombing, which was a terrifying experience as I was very close when it happened. So, this long-coveted blue-and-yellow windbreaker is just stuffed in the back of my closet, and I’m weirdly conflicted about ever wearing it, but also super protective of it. And I haven’t run another marathon since.
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I don’t really understand the author’s answer to her question of Marcellus trying to leave. Didn’t Marcellus try to leave once when Cameron left the door to the outside open? Am I missing Marcellus’s intent there?
Yes, Cameron stops Marcellus from escaping out the back door, but that’s a first for Marcellus after 1,329 days of captivity. He surely had many earlier opportunities that he did not take. Tova senses how unusual it is:
But something nags at Tova…Until tonight’s attempt to leave the building, she would’ve thought Marcellus had enough common sense to avoid such bold stunts, to keep his nightly hijinks to the usual: teasing the sawhorses, poking around in the sea cucumber tank for a midnight snack (p. 182).
I think the attempted escape comes as Marcellus begins to lose his fear of change – he is nearing the end of his life and finally ready to somehow get himself back to the sea. But it ultimately requires help from Tova. Each gives the other what they need to be released from their captivity – Marcellus’ literal, Tova’s metaphorical.
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Thank you. That makes sense now. I must have missed that somehow … maybe when I fell asleep reading… 
During my coincidental real life (by Zoom) book club discussion, I mentioned the memorable scene about Tova getting Marcellus to the ocean. It just seemed to so vivid, the vision of her stubbornly dragging the mop bucket with the bad ankle over the rocks to the ocean. Others agreed.
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