Published September 2008
My father took one hundred and thirty two minutes to die.
‘I counted.
‘It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of kilometres away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, “What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?” and my father said, “Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,” and that was the last thing he ever said.
‘We heard her almost straight away. In the other car, wedged into ours so deep that you couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. She told us her name was Tate and then she squeezed through the glass and the steel and climbed over her own dead – just to be with Webb and me; to give us her hand so we could clutch it with all our might. And then a kid called Fitz came riding by on a stolen bike and saved our lives.
‘Someone asked us later, “Didn’t you wonder why no one came across you sooner?”
‘Did I wonder?
‘When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they’re some kind of garbage, don’t you know?
‘Wonder dies.’
Jellicoe Road is one of the strangest books I have ever read. It is a book that you need to go into knowing little about. For the first 100 or so pages, I was completely baffled. The chapters are confusing, the main plotline seems to hover on the periphery never really coming close enough for you to figure out. The writing is intense and emotional, and even though I didn't quite understand what I was reading, I did know that I wanted to swallow the words whole without chewing.
I don't even really know what to say, other than I knew Melina was building this story from where it needed to begin, and that she wrote the story this way for a reason. Trust me, she did. In the end, when all the little threads of plot she has carefully crafted at the beginning of the book start coming together, you are left with a story so compelling, so heartbreakingly beautiful and unlike anything you have ever read before.
It's hard to describe a book that seemed to elude me for most of the time I was reading it. This is a story about a girl who got left behind, about friendships so unique they can span years, and about identity. It's about the Jellicoe Road, which stays a constant to every character in the book tying them all together, like its not just a road, but a character in its own right.
Melina has this way with words that just pulls you under, you immerse yourself in them. She builds her characters in a way that makes you wish you knew them. To Taylor who is blunt and hurt and afraid and kick ass in a way not a lot of teenage girls are. To Raf who is strong and sassy and so different and yet the same as Taylor. To Santangelo who cares about the territorial "wars" almost too much, but you want to love him for it. To Jonah, who tastes like honey, is imperfect and silly and strong and perfect. To Hannah, who carries the book in a way I could never understand. To the people who lived on the Jellicoe Road, who know the true meaning of friendship, grief, understanding and love. To my favourite character, the boy in the tree.
Melina has created a story that is as dense as the Aussie bush and just as beautiful. It broke my heart into a thousand pieces and then carefully glued them back together so I couldn't even tell it had been broken. I even slept with it under my pillow because I just love it so. Mesmorising in i's ambiguity and sureity, On The Jellicoe Road might just be one of the best books I have ever read.
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