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Chapters (19)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. PRAISE
  3. TITLE PAGE
  4. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  5. DEDICATION
  6. CONTENTS
  7. ONE
  8. CROSSING ISTHMUS
  9. THE OCTOPUS INCIDENT
  10. TWO
  11. A SEAL’S TAKE
  12. THE MULTI-COLOURED KNITTED KNOCKERS
  13. NO BIRD IS ONLY AN I
  14. THREE
  15. I AM SHE
  16. SPUN AIR
  17. THE OCTOPUS AND I
  18. NOTES AND REFERENCES
  19. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The information about octopus neurons and suckers on pages 71–72 is drawn from Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness, Atria Books, New York, 2015, p. 14.

On page 309 Lucy reads an article about scientists sequencing an octopus genome; the quotes she reads are from neurobiologist and octopus researcher Clifton Ragsdale, and it is published in Joshua A. Krisch’s ‘Scientists Have Sequenced the First Octopus Genome’, Vocativ, 12 August 2015, http://www.vocativ.com/220961/octopus-genome/index.html, accessed 4 March 2018.

On page 310 Lucy reads another article, about an octopus’s interactive touch. This quote is drawn from Natalie Angier’s ‘At Love and Play Under the Sea in an Octopus’s Garden’, New York Times, 11 August 1998. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/11/science/at-love-and-play-under-the-sea-in-an-octopus-s-garden.html, accessed 4 March 2018. Her mention of an octopus’s capacity to see with its skin comes from the finding reported in M. Desmond Ramirez and Todd H. Oakley, ‘Eye-Independent, Light-Activated Chromatophore Expansion (LACE) and Expression of Phototransduction Genes in the Skin of Octopus Bimaculoides’, Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 218, 2015, pp. 1513–1520.

Lucy’s reference on page 310 to an octopus’s ability to learn vicariously comes from the findings reported in Graziano Fiorito and Pietro Scotto’s ‘Observational Learning in Octopus vulgaris’, Science, vol. 256, no. 6056, April 1992, pp. 545–547. Her mention of octopus displays of favouritism is written about extensively in Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus, pp. 8–13.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am immensely grateful to so many people who supported and encouraged me in innumerable ways whilst I wrote this novel, and who helped me bring it into being.

Hannah Stark, Danielle Wood and Robert Clarke were so generous with their insightful guidance and feedback when this story was in thesis form. Their expertise, enthusiasm, criticism and reassurance were invaluable. I am a better writer, reader and thinker because of their support, which was facilitated by the University of Tasmania. I am grateful for Commonwealth funding to complete my PhD, which gave me the time and space to begin this novel and think through the complexities of human and non-human relationships in a range of ways which permeated the narrative and helped it become what it is.

Robyn Greaves, Sophia Sheehan, Claire Neyland, Susie Cretan, Adrien Butler, Tess Luttrell and Emma Voss so generously gave up their time so they might offer me a reader’s perspective on early drafts of the novel. I need all of you to know how grateful I am for this, and how grateful I am to have friends like you in my life.