Spent Light

“Domestic objects lead to intimate memories and troubled histories in this glorious, genre-bending book.” —The Guardian

An unnamed woman contemplates the toaster she’s inherited from a neighbor. A homely, useful sort of object, hardly worthy of a sonnet or still-life. And yet, thinking of where its parts originated, who assembled it, and how it arrived at her door, could it not be considered as much a source of awe as any waterfall of battlefield? Numbed as she may be by life, can she still...