I am learning the alchemy of grief how it must be carefully measured and doled out, inflicted but I have not yet mastered this art, writes Judith Ortiz Cofer in The Cruel Country. This richly textured, deeply moving, lyrical memoir centers on Cofer s return to her native Puerto Rico after her mother has been diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer.

Cofer s work has always drawn strength from her life s contradictions and dualities, such as the necessities and demands of both English and Spanish, her travels between and within various mainland and island subcultures, and the...