From The Boston Review Philpot's astonishing debut takes its name from a Lacanian reference to incest: "an incorrect distance from loved ones." A domestic violence counsellor in Seldovia， Alaska， Philpot is well-acquainted with narratives of pathological relationships--incestuous， violent， emotionally abusive. "She's named her bruises / Jellyfish and Rorschach，" she writes in "How the Crazy Love." In "Wildlife，" the speaker tells a lover， "I want to be the best scar on your body." Philpot expresses， as in "The Holiday of Escape，" what it means to be irrevocably hardened by betrayal: "Even if I've loved you this way once / it will never happen again." In "A Victim in a Beautiful House，" the horrors of an existence rampant with abuse and upheaval are catalogued matter-of-factly: "a personal life written on shift notes / a roof that prevents beauty / a secluded voice of dystonic verbs / --and now they say even the scraps of dreams / will kill you in your sleep." Here， as in so many of her poems， Philpot arrives at a heartbreaking discovery， noting that "paradise is porous， / intoxicating， and has very few / whole people in it." Her eloquent reportage reminds us that in a world in which every day "[s]omeone's life is a meteor let go，" innocence is no longer possible. Copyright © 1996， Boston Review. All rights reserved.