Mystery in everyday objects

‘The surest and quickest way for us to arouse the sense of wonder is to stare unafraid at a single object.’ Cesare Pavese wrote those words in Dialogues with Leucò, one of two quotations that preface Lara Pawson’s deceptively slim third book, Spent Light.

Pawson takes the Italian writer at his word, turning to a toaster for inspiration. The electrical appliance, which appears two pages in, is a gift from a neighbour, Reg, after his wife dies. Pawson uses it to launch a deeply empathetic piece of writing exploring the brutality of the world in which we live. ‘What would have had to happen to me to make me be so cruel?’ she asks, after recounting a gruesome tale about a bullfighter killing someone’s baby. The female first-person protagonist is unnamed, but is surely a proxy for Pawson.