Shelby Van Pelt wrote the octopus book ‘Bright Creatures,’ and it keeps pulling her back

Shelby Van Pelt lives in Wheaton on an unassuming street, the sort without a gate at the entrance, or fleets of Teslas charging in the driveways, or gaggles of dads jogging in packs. Her neighbors are elderly. Her subdivision was built largely in the 1960s and has not changed much since then. The driveways are fairly short, and at the top of hers, the garage door hangs open. A children’s game is spread across the lawn. Nothing about this neighborhood screams blockbuster. You probably don’t even recognize her name. Yet Shelby Van Pelt has had the kind of runaway literary…