Ruin by Cynthia Cruz

“Cruz writes about illness, death, destitution and addiction with confident authority and disquieting relish.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“This is not a book about peacocks in twilight nor should it be read in the parlor. These spare, intense poems are both terrifying and excruciatingly tender, often both at once. Rarely is mystery so lucid, rarely does poetry rush so directly to the marrow. Ruin is a brilliant debut.”
—Thomas Lux

“Cruz’s chillingly powerful debut traces the coming-of-age of a girl whose family is haunted by the death of a brother, perhaps by his own hand. In language that is pleadingly clear but also, in the long wake of a shameful family secret, necessarily withholding…Cruz seeks terms with which to mourn and regain what she has lost.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review