The Weight of Eight Arms: A Novel

Nora Vance has spent the year since her husband's death mastering the art of disappearing into routine - one more trash bin emptied, one more floor mopped, one more night shift at the small marine rehabilitation center where nobody asks the questions she isn't ready to answer. Then she meets him: an aging giant Pacific octopus, recovering from an injury that nearly cost him his life, tucked into a temporary tank in a quiet corner of the building. He isn't supposed to be anything more than another animal on her nightly rounds. But something about the way he watches her - patient, curious, unnervingly attentive - reaches a part of Nora she thought the grief had sealed shut for good. As his body heals and his release date draws nearer, Nora finds herself confronting the parts of her own life she's been carefully avoiding: a guilt she's never spoken aloud, a marriage she never finished grieving, and a fear that letting herself love anything again means risking the unbearable weight of losing it. Tender, quietly funny, and deeply felt, The Weight of Eight Arms is a story about the strange creatures - human and otherwise - who show up exactly when we need them most, and the courage it takes to let them in, even when we know, from the very beginning, that we won't get to keep them forever.