First published 2025
Arundhati Roy confronts the death of her mother Mary in September 2022. The intensity of her grief surprises and shames her. She fled home at eighteen, not from lack of love but to preserve it. Now she writes to understand their complicated bond. Mary Roy was a single mother who founded a school in Kerala, India. She became both shelter and storm for her daughter. Roy traces her path from childhood in Kerala to becoming the celebrated author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. The memoir reveals how Mary shaped both the woman and the writer Roy became. Roy explores the thorny nature of their love with the same scope and passion that marks her novels and essays. This account captures the savage grace of a relationship that defined her life.
Genres: autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, grief
Setting: India, Kerala
Period: 2022
373 pages · Paperback · Hamish Hamilton