I once read that people who’ve had trauma to a particular part of the brain’s right hemisphere can develop a fixation on small, seemingly irrelevant objects. Walking into a room to do some task or other, they’ll get stuck obsessively staring at the door hinges. I don’t remember where I came across this fact—so much of what one reads these days slips into that great jumble of flotsam that drifts about the mind—but it occurred to me more than once while reading Claire-Louise Bennett’s books. Many passages begin in a straightforward way, with the setting of a scene and the promise of dramatic action. But then the story stalls, zeroes in on some incidental detail, and collapses into a mode of reflection that is circular and recursive.…