ran, the narrator of Nell Zink’s latest novel, is abandoned by her parents as a child, and grows up in southern California with the criminal family of her mother’s ex-boyfriend, the Hendersons. From early childhood she is used by them as unpaid labour in the plant nursery they run as a front operation. It’s a world of gang-affiliated bikers and exploited immigrant labourers, where Bran sleeps in an unheated lean-to and lives on canned food warmed with propane. But Bran is meant for better things, and the
