Review
The Thing About Jellyfish
A thoughtfully written, thoroughly researched book about childhood, life, death, grief, and hope — and jellyfish.
Twelve-year-old Suzy Swanson is devastated when she hears that her former best friend, Franny Jackson, is no more. Franny — Franny, who has been swimming since forever, couldn’t have passed in a drowning accident. There was something amiss — and she was the only one who could feel it.
“Some things just happen,” her mother tells her in consolation. But for Suzy, that wasn’t enough. To her, it is a terrible answer. Some things couldn’t just happen. She doesn’t want things to end the way they did. As disbelief turns into denial, she decides to get to the bottom of it.
Her revelation happens one afternoon in the middle of a field trip to the aquarium. Seventh grade had begun, albeit without Franny. As the rest of her class listens to an aquarium worker, Suzy drifts off to a corner and the staircase below to the Jellies exhibit, where she sees for the first time, an Irukandji jellyfish.
Thus starts The Thing about Jellyfish, Ali Benjamin’s wonderful debut novel that explores grief and life’s meaning in thoughtfully written chapters that flow in and out of Suzy’s past seamlessly. Every chapter has a nugget in the beginning — a quote attributed to Mrs. Turton, who is a teacher I would love to have had in seventh grade.
Sometimes friendships that you expect to naturally last forever fizzle out when you least expect it — and for no fault of your own. How would you respond to it? Friends since five, Suzy and Franny have their moments; however, growing up is a process that affects different individuals quite differently, and at varied rates, emotionally as much as physically. What it does to their friendship is a study in the psychology of prejudice in itself.
Following her visit to the aquarium, Suzy embarks on a mission to uncover the real reason behind Franny’s death — her hypothesis is that of an Irukandji jellyfish sting.
Franny’s death has also delivered a painful blow to Suzy’s hope of healing the rift cut open between them, which further pushes her into a state of detachment. She withdraws into a zone she calls ‘no-talking’, a means of shutting out her divorced parents, uppity junior high classmates, and the rest of the world.
“If people were silent, they could hear the noise of their own lives better. If people were silent, it would make what they did say, whenever they chose to say it, more important. If people were silent, they could read one another’s signals, the way underwater creatures flash lights at one another, or turn their skin different colors.”
In the months following Franny’s demise, her only goal is to meet a jellyfish researcher who can convince the world of her hypothesis— even if it means traveling alone secretly to the other end of the globe.
There is so much wonder scattered all over this heartfelt book. So many elements of the natural world are (re)introduced with a fascination and curiosity that you’d expect only from a child. For one, information about jellyfish — tonnes of it. Well- presented and full of original understanding.
In fact, the story of how the book came to be published goes like this: Ali Benjamin had taken her kids to the New England aquarium when they chanced upon a jellies exhibit.
Having been awed by their beauty, incredibly long history on Earth, and intriguing biological processes, she started reading about them; so much so that she started working on a non-fiction book about jellyfish. However, eventually, she made it a work of children’s fiction by putting together a story about a young schoolgirl and her brother that had been on her mind for some time.
There are references to real-life jellyfish researchers whose names Suzy pick out from her relentless internet searches, ‘Fireflies’ — a lovely song Suzy reminisces listening to with Franny, a video of Neil deGrasse Tyson that Mrs. Turton would show Suzy. I was so intrigued by the book that I followed up on each one of those resources.
I was twenty-two when I read the book, which is primarily intended for middle-graders, but the impact it had on me as a person who can relate to the friendship woes and psychological growth process of a twelve-year-old was tremendous.
Ali Benjamin’s language flows with a deep understanding of the way the human mind works. I recommend this book to everyone who has a fascination for all living beings, a love for learning, a respect for human relationships, and the patience to immerse in a children’s book and observe without judgment until the end.
