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Christopher Owens ðŸ”– ‘No one gets to guilt-monger me. I simply don’t feel it…My mother tried to control me by saying she was about to die the entire time she was alive. Eventually I was like, “Well, we all have to go at some point. Maybe that Will come for you tonight if I go out with my friends.”’


This quote sums up Lisa Carver. Performance artist, noise monger, prolific author and sex worker, she has lived many lives and has quite the story to tell.

An exchange with her cousin Lorrie gives an idea of what kind of story to expect:

‘I was terrified coming from my little Christian school to your filthy, vile apartment with your weirdo roommates. It was furnished with things you had literally dragged out of people’s trash.” She recalled the ‘art’ nailed on the wall above the couch where she slept: a shit - and blood-stained plastic music box in the shape of a church. The music-making part was broken and squawked at random all night long, she said. “And it was so cold my Walkman froze.

“Hahaha, your Walkman froze!” I couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t know why I thought that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.

“Well, I loved you anyway,” she sighed.

“And I you,” I said. “Did I tell you I’m Catholic now?”’

Made up of ten essays/pieces which range from visiting a shaman in Peru to nearly dying in France as well as ruminations on past relationships, near conversions and her estrangement from her daughter, Lover of Leaving reveals that Carver has not had it easy in recent years. Regardless, her ability to examine her life and the circumstances surrounding certain actions remain undimmed.

‘C’est la Vie: A Cancer Diary’ is utterly horrifying, draining and isolating as Carver goes into grim detail how much blood she lost in hospital and how the recovery process affected her relationship with her now husband. Such essays are important as they demonstrate how survivors can become alienated from everyone around them (as well as themselves) meaning that when relationships collapse, some of the involved parties will wonder how it happened.

Probably the most affecting essay in the book is ‘I Am Come With a Sword’ which looks at her relationship with her estranged daughter and Carver’s initial reaction to this ultimatum. This particular segment is worth noting:

I left home at sixteen, but I never truly left my mother and father. I dared not pick up the sword. They had taken me over so thoroughly, the husk that was not them may have crumbled to dust had I ejected them from me. I left myself instead. I let them have my body and my life. I allowed myself only the eyes, roving this world, scanning, recording. My daughter wanted more. She scorch-earthed it all – yes, even her own life. She busted up cars and relationships…She would protect the world from the shards of her where she got broken no more. She wielded the sword.

Moments like this, when the bluster is gone, reveal a deep sadness that hits the reader between the eyes.

Stark, maudlin, amusing, sanguine, bleak. But crucially, never boring.

Lisa Carver, 2025, Lover of Leaving. Pig Roast Publishing. ISBN-13: 979-8989147083

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Lover Of Leaving

Christopher Owens ðŸ”– ‘No one gets to guilt-monger me. I simply don’t feel it…My mother tried to control me by saying she was about to die the entire time she was alive. Eventually I was like, “Well, we all have to go at some point. Maybe that Will come for you tonight if I go out with my friends.”’


This quote sums up Lisa Carver. Performance artist, noise monger, prolific author and sex worker, she has lived many lives and has quite the story to tell.

An exchange with her cousin Lorrie gives an idea of what kind of story to expect:

‘I was terrified coming from my little Christian school to your filthy, vile apartment with your weirdo roommates. It was furnished with things you had literally dragged out of people’s trash.” She recalled the ‘art’ nailed on the wall above the couch where she slept: a shit - and blood-stained plastic music box in the shape of a church. The music-making part was broken and squawked at random all night long, she said. “And it was so cold my Walkman froze.

“Hahaha, your Walkman froze!” I couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t know why I thought that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.

“Well, I loved you anyway,” she sighed.

“And I you,” I said. “Did I tell you I’m Catholic now?”’

Made up of ten essays/pieces which range from visiting a shaman in Peru to nearly dying in France as well as ruminations on past relationships, near conversions and her estrangement from her daughter, Lover of Leaving reveals that Carver has not had it easy in recent years. Regardless, her ability to examine her life and the circumstances surrounding certain actions remain undimmed.

‘C’est la Vie: A Cancer Diary’ is utterly horrifying, draining and isolating as Carver goes into grim detail how much blood she lost in hospital and how the recovery process affected her relationship with her now husband. Such essays are important as they demonstrate how survivors can become alienated from everyone around them (as well as themselves) meaning that when relationships collapse, some of the involved parties will wonder how it happened.

Probably the most affecting essay in the book is ‘I Am Come With a Sword’ which looks at her relationship with her estranged daughter and Carver’s initial reaction to this ultimatum. This particular segment is worth noting:

I left home at sixteen, but I never truly left my mother and father. I dared not pick up the sword. They had taken me over so thoroughly, the husk that was not them may have crumbled to dust had I ejected them from me. I left myself instead. I let them have my body and my life. I allowed myself only the eyes, roving this world, scanning, recording. My daughter wanted more. She scorch-earthed it all – yes, even her own life. She busted up cars and relationships…She would protect the world from the shards of her where she got broken no more. She wielded the sword.

Moments like this, when the bluster is gone, reveal a deep sadness that hits the reader between the eyes.

Stark, maudlin, amusing, sanguine, bleak. But crucially, never boring.

Lisa Carver, 2025, Lover of Leaving. Pig Roast Publishing. ISBN-13: 979-8989147083

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
Christopher Owens

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