Avalon | 誠品線上

Avalon

內容簡介

內容簡介 Bran's Southern California upbringing is anything but traditional. After her mother abandons her and joins a Buddhist colony, Bran is raised by her 'common-law stepfather' on Bourdon Farms - a plant nursery that doubles as a cover for a biker gang. She spends her days tending plants, slogging through high school and imagining what life could be if she had been born to a different family.Then she meets Peter - a charming, troubled college student from the East Coast - who launches his teaching career by initiating her into the world of art. The two begin a seemingly doomed long-distance relationship as Bran searches for meaning in her own surroundings. She knows how to survive, but now she must learn how to live.'Avalon observes beautifully the shifting terrain of teenage intimacy: its intensity and its fragility . . . it's a hilarious, heartbreaking and - of course - extremely weird novel.' Sunday Times

各界推薦

各界推薦 Avalon observes beautifully the shifting terrain of teenage intimacy: its intensity and its fragility . . . it's a hilarious, heartbreaking and - of course - extremely weird novel. -- Sarah Ditum ― Sunday TimesThe American author Nell Zink has made a name for herself as a writer of intelligent, irreverent novels that seek to provoke and satirise contemporary society . . . Zink's wacky storylines are typically held together by a wry authorial voice and uncommon descriptive power. Avalon continues the trend. A black comedy of female emancipation in contemporary California, it's the most droll and unsentimental orphan tale you'll read . . . The book is full of biting one-liners on society at large, on everything from class to gender to race. What sets Avalon apart from Zink's previous books is that in addition to the whimsical plot turns and sharp social commentary, she has managed to create a hugely sympathetic and believable heroine in Bran . . . The reader will root for Bran from the beginning and grow increasingly desperate for her to improve her situation as the book races along to its perfect, ambivalent end . . . [Avalon] has echoes of the eccentric family stories of Ann Patchett and Miriam Toews, mixed with the offbeat humour of Miranda July.' -- Sarah Gilmartin ― Irish TimesA pleasure, and will give you more that's genuinely new than 99% of books to be published this year. -- Sandra Newman ― GuardianZink is always an ostentatiously weird writer and Avalon continues her tradition of very strange stuff . . . This couldn't be a less conventional coming-of-age story but Zink manages to make you laugh in spite of the dire misery of Bran's existence. Whether Peter turns out to be her saviour or her nemesis is at the heart of this beautifully realised vision of the internal torment of a troubled teenager. ― Daily MailZink has taken high-concept premises to transgressive extremes with clever self-assurance... [her] confidence and authority as a writer are evident from Avalon's killer first sentences... [Avalon] surprised me. Something landed. The flight might be longer, floatier and more manic than some might want from fiction, but it ended up, for me, feeling like art. -- Lynn Steger Strong ― LA TimesThe effulgent and clever sort of novel that replicates the experience of learning a new game. -- Molly Young ― New York Times

作者介紹

作者介紹 Nell ZinkNell Zink left Southern California for eastern Virginia in 1972, aged eight. After completing a B.A. in philosophy at the College of William and Mary, she worked mostly as a secretary, with stints in masonry, technical writing, and translating. Her books include The Wallcreeper, Mislaid, Private Novelist, Nicotine, and Doxology, and her writing has appeared in n+1, Granta, and Harper's Magazine.

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