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Mother Mary Comes to Me
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About This Book
A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces the complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati's life both as a woman and a writer. Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy's first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as "my shelter and my storm." "Heart-smashed" by her mother Mary's death in September 2022 yet puzzled and "more than a little ashamed" by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, "not because I didn't love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her." And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author's journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today. With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.
Reviews
"There is nothing subdued or conciliatory in its account of the brutal transfer of power which comes when a parent is failing and a child assumes command."
"As with most memoirs, Roy seeks to set the record straight and rebut her critics."
"An intimate, stirring chronicle."
"This book offers a fascinatingly nuanced meditation on parenting in India, where many children are raised not to challenge or question, and where many parents never take responsibility for their actions, leaving their children to carry the weight of them alone ..."
"Pulses with compassion and moral outrage ..."
"The problem is not that Roy has chosen to write about politics but that she has done so with all the subtlety of a pamphleteer."
"Episodic and rich with detail and observation."
"Neither too bleak nor overly conciliatory, the account does justice to often-irresolvable feelings of familial ambivalence."
"Roy herself makes the case that her worldview stems from the feeling of dread—'the cold moth on my heart'—that she knew as the wounded, ever-vigilant daughter of Mary Roy."
"It is a masterpiece of memoir writing, a rich tapestry of memory, reckoning and longing."
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