In 1965 Ellie Hockley, raised to be a southern lady, is engaged to a bank manager and enrolled in college. Against the wishes of her parents, Ellie joins the freedom fighters in an effort to register black voters.

“Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.” This quote is from the octopus Marcellus in the novel who is always evaluating humans, and feels he is quite superior to them.

“There was for me during this time a sense of being dazed. As though, in a way, I was not capable of taking in everything that was happening in this world.”

““Perhaps the greatest gift ever bestowed upon us by evolution is the ability to believe we are more powerful than we are...”

“Our bodies belonged to us. Poor, disabled, it didn’t matter. These were our bodies, and we had the right to “decide what to do with them. It was as if they were just taking our bodies from us, as if we didn’t even belong to ourselves.”