Against the backdrop of a sibling's death, an eating disorder, and a few very dismal dating relationships, Villa Negativa looks for laughter behind darkness: the intruder who politely removes her shoes, the fabricator whose closest relationship is with fibreglass, the anorexic who sends the Diet Coke back because it tastes too good. Meditative and mischievous, confessional and philosophical, sincere and sly by turns, Sharon McCartney's seventh collection articulates an essential truth of self-knowledge-that "to perceive something, we have to be able / to stand away from it."
