SPENT LIGHT by Lara Pawson — reviewed by Stella

Here is a book where the abject meets the sublime, where objects trigger histories, and where history is bound to objects; where in every place and in every object an association can be made (some juvenile , others frightening) and where the most mundane of activities unleashes waves of emotion. Lara Pawson is on her knees cleaning the ancient tiles in her flat. She is dusting the tarnished sporting cup in which she spies a moth trap. She observes with a degree of contempt but also reassurance the sponge tucked behind the downpipe. The egg timer is its own bomb, the toaster shoved in her arms by a recently widowed neighbour a disaster waiting to happen. How can she take this functional object into her kitchen without contemplating torture? Walking with her dog along damp streets, and through scrubby wastelands, her mind wanders to other forests, other spaces of escape and entrapment. Spent Light is deplorable and beautiful. As you think you can read no more, you are drawn in by this persistent voice, by the intelligence and desperation of this mind as it grapples with history, with the objects that connect us to human actions, to human depravity and suffering. And yet, it also gives us a vision of overwhelming love, of connectedness in spite of horror; to a place where an object can tell us a history — its story, but also a story of others it has touched. For it is in the seeing, in the looking, when one thinks if only they could close their eyes, close their minds, that a truth will come. Lara Pawson is facing her demons, or is it our collective demons, and she is shocking, She confronts us with her determination and savage humour. She picks at the wound and somehow simultaneously has the ability to make a scab that will protect and heal us all. Spent Light is as compelling as it is repellent. A book filled with horrors (some intensely difficult, others facile) which are countered with remarkable acts of love and care, all held in the silent, yet powerful, presence of objects. Remarkable.