Unsettling Tensions

Around college application time, an academic counselor at West High School in Torrance, Calif., asks Bran—the narrator of Nell Zink’s new novel, Avalon—what she plans to do after graduation. Bran tells the counselor that she’s going to move to Australia to live with her biological father. It’s a plausible plan of action, but the truth is, she’s not actually sure he still lives in Australia—or whether he even moved there in the first place. In reality, Bran hasn’t planned things out beyond the next few weeks.