Two of the strongest stories in White Light, ‘Red Shoes’ and ‘Ping-Pong Principle’, are written in O’Flynn’s favoured first-person perspective, a style sympathetic with the writer’s often complex and introverted characters. Similarly, O’Flynn’s few monologue-like pieces in White Light successfully reflect the confusion these characters face when confronted with new events in their usually familiar suburban surrounds.

The ageing poet in ‘Red Shoes’ hesitantly leaves this setting to cross the Nullarbor by train, swearing heavily on being trapped in the railway carriage toilet. ‘Just bury me with some poems and some wattle,’ she later calls to her partner Merv (‘his cracked, familiar hand squeezing in through the door for comfort’). It is one of the collection’s most affecting moments. O’Flynn gracefully balances satire and struggle, common themes across all sixteen stories.

However, in the title story, O’Flynn flirts too closely with caricature. Pimply Jehovah’s Witness converters are described, alongside a housework-obsessed single mother, a teaspoon of amphetamines replacing the usual sugar in her morning Nescafé. The story’s narrator, ‘Shazza’, is also flattened by O’Flynn’s clumsy use of Australian slang, a problem lacing the collection.

Despite this, White Light has enjoyable breadth. Its slight lack of consistency is redeemed by O’Flynn’s stronger pieces. Whether it is a character with teeth ‘like a flock of sheep’, or the ‘mist and the currawongs’ of a small semi-suburban backyard, O’Flynn patterns his best stories well.