Avalon by Nell Zink {Reveiwed by STELLA}
The end of this novel is at the beginning, and the end of the novel feels like a beginning. This pretty much sums up the tone of Nell Zink’s sixth book, Avalon. It has that beguiling characteristic of being simultaneously clever and maddening. On one hand, it holds you in the palm of the narrator, Bran, while the other hand slaps you down and holds the door closed. Yet, it all kind of hangs together — due in large part to Zink’s ability to tune the reader into Bran’s offbeat world. The details, which you tease out, of Bran’s upbringing come to light over the course of the novel, as she obsesses over the undeserving Peter. You meet the young lovers under the moonlight, a hound between them and a cringing announcement in the air. From the get-go, you get a sense that Peter will never be what Bran needs, even as she sinks into romantic reverie. After a few pages, the scene cuts to Avalon — a family holiday trip of childhood — a memory that Bran holds close. Her parents are still in the picture and she has yet to be abandoned by them both. Her father goes to Australia and later her mother, in a fit of self-centered awakening, leaves to live at a hippy Buddhist retreat to spend her days vacuuming and meditating. Bran is left, (after a brief interlude with her grandparents (but the trailer park rules don’t allow children)), with her stepfather, his creepy father, and her half-brother living in a drafty lean-to and working after school in the family plant nursery. A perfect cheap labour source and later she’s a free carer to her ‘grandfather’. If it wasn’t for her outsider friend Jay and her own fierce intellect (which she is perfectly unaware of), here she would stay forever. Yet it is her friendship with Jay and by extension his group of friends, that gives her a connection to a world beyond the confines of her crooked family (there are tax evasions, drug deals — probably, and bike gangs looming) and small-town mentality. She meets Peter through Jay (they both have crushes on the charming and attractive Peter), and through them she has a window, which she can’t go through, but she can definitely see through, to university life and the possibilities that beckon. Although her drive is much more about scoring the boy, than about scoring an education. We, the reader, hope, after Avalon concludes, that Bran will dump the boy and find her own path. There are nods to this — to an independent future — throughout. For Jay and the other wealthy side characters, life is offered up on a plate. For Bran, constantly working, literally in the nursery and later in the precariat workforce, and figuratively on herself, it’s more hit-and-miss. Will her car make it across the country without overheating? Can she avoid the biker gang and her crazy family? Will Peter call off his engagement to the very attractive and wealthy Yasira — his ticket to the easy life? If she tells herself enough time she’s a screenwriter, will it come true? Avalon is a classic girl-meets-boy tale with a twist, which is hardly surprising when Nell Zink is in charge. It has a hilarious overtone of wry observation — it’s a playfully clever novel about pretense and fecklessness — while sustaining a grittier, yet more oblique, undertone of danger and unsettling behaviour.
