Jellyfish Have No Ears

Since she was little, Louise has been not quite hearing and not quite deafher life with this invisible disability
has been one of in-betweenness. After an audiology test shows that almost all her hearing is gone, her doctor
suggests getting a cochlear implant. The operation will be irreversible, making the decision all the more fraught.
The technology would give Louise a new sense of hearingbut it would be at the expense of her natural hearing,
which, for all its weakness, has shaped her unique relationship with the world, full of whispers and shadows.
Hearing, for Louise, is inseparable from reading other people’s lips. Through sight, she perceives words and
strings them together like pearls to reconstruct a conversation. But when the string breaks, misunderstandings
result and eccentric images fill her thoughts. As she weighs the prospect of surgery, fabulous characters begin
to accompany her: a damaged soldier from the First World War, an irritable dog named Cirrus, and a whimsical
botanist. This ethereal world, full of terror and beauty and off-kilter humor, keeps erupting into the equally
chaotic reality of Louise’s life as she experiences a new relationship, suffers through her first job, and steadies
herself with friends.
With Jellyfish Have No Ears, Adèle Rosenfeld shines an extraordinary light on the black hole of losing a sense
and on the vibrancy that can arise to fill the void.