The
Latina Book Club is proud to be part of Judith Ortiz Cofer’s blog tour for this
extraordinary and poignant memoir.
We just had to make it our May Book of the Month, especially with Mother's Day just days away.
We
wish Judith all the best and want to offer her our deepest sympathy on the loss
of her mother.
And to our Dear Readers, Happy Mother's Day to you and yours.
GIVEAWAY: Please leave a comment on this blog post or on our Twitter page, and you will be entered to win a copy of THE CRUEL COUNTRY. Continental residents only.
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| University of Georgia Press |
"I
came home to face the heretofore unacknowledged fact that death is not a
surprise; death is the given.” – Judith Ortiz Cofer
Emotional.
Honest. Heartbreaking.
Readers
will cry and marvel at this well-written, well-documented journal of
grief. Author Judith Ortiz Cofer is known
for the candor in her writing, but this memoir is more personal. THE CRUEL COUNTRY is her private struggle to
come to terms with her mother’s death.
When
Judith learns that her mother’s death is imminent, she rushes to Puerto Rico to
be at her side like a good daughter.
There sitting by her mother’s deathbed, Judith is engulfed with all
sorts of feelings – love, regret, fear, guilt, loneliness. Memories rush at her from all sides – good,
bad, ugly --, and as Judith wades through them so does the reader.
After the
funeral, Judith returns to her life a lost child -- defenseless, lonely, full
of fear, full of grief. She finds a great
“hueco” within – a great hole – that nothing seems to penetrate it or to fill
it. While some may try to fill this hueco
with work, family, events, Judith fills it with words, but writing is not so easy
when one is writing about one’s mother; about the estrangement between them;
about the helplessness against death; about being alone and still uncomfortable
straddling two worlds.
I thank
Judith Ortiz Cofer for sharing her story with me. I send her a heart-felt abrazo (hug) from one
motherless daughter to another. Like Judith,
I too have learned that all anyone can do after the loss of a parent is to cherish
the memories; forget the regrets; and, take life one day at a time.#
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Judith
Ortiz Cofer is the Regents’ and Franklin Professor of English and Creative
Writing Emerita at the University of Georgia. She is also the author of THE
LATIN DELI: Telling the Lives of
Barrio Women; AN ISLAND LIKE YOU: Stories of the Barrio; WOMAN IN FRONT OF THE
SUN: On Becoming a Writer; and many other books. The University of
Georgia Press published her first novel, THE LINE OF THE SUN, in 1989. Visit her website at http://judithortizcofer.english.uga.edu/.
REMINDER: The Latina Book Club is giving away a copy of THE CRUEL COUNTRY. Leave a comment here on this post or on our Twitter page, @latinabookclub. Good luck.
Comments
Mica
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This great quote in the blog post alone makes me want to read this memoir.