The instant you see Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes To Me, you will want to pick it up for the striking black-and-white photographs on the jacket alone. On the front: a youthful, hopeful Roy – contemplative, with a bidi in hand. On the back: an older, dare I say, wiser, Roy with a wry smile, perhaps observing her younger self – peaceful, knowledgeable and content.
This is a memoir of epic proportions and fans of Roy’s fiction will not be disappointed. It’s a memoir of two parts: a searingly beautiful and honest account of Roy’s complex relationship with her mother, Mary, and Roy’s own life story, particularly her journey in writing her epic Booker Prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things. Roy is a truly gifted storyteller and I believe if there were a prize awarded for the “Booker of all Bookers” then The God of Small Things would surely be the winner.
Mary Roy (‘Mrs Roy’ to her children) was a force of nature. A single mother, it seems she did not have time for the trivialities of raising children. She was, however, a fiercely intelligent and progressive woman and educator. Mrs Roy established a school in Kerala in 1967 that still flourishes today, and she continues to be revered as a feminist and visionary. However, her children, particularly Arundhati, bore the brunt of a cruelty that clearly contradicts the accolades. Roy’s memories of her mother are captured with striking clarity and are often disturbing; as a reader, you wonder how she put up with it all.
There is a period of seven years where Roy doesn’t have contact with Mrs Roy, and it is during this time that we learn of Roy’s other life – a life of her own creation involving struggles with making it on her own, poverty, studies, loves, political activism, successful careers in architecture and filmmaking – and with the call of writing a constant throughout. Roy looks back at how The God of Small Things, her debut novel, catapulted her into the upper echelons of the literary world. These recollections are inspiring and reveal the making of an author before the digital age – what a gift.
When mother and daughter do make contact again, Roy is older and credits her mother with allowing her freedom: to think, to write, to be. Mother Mary Comes To Me is a memoir to devour, equal parts rage and heartache: two women, two very different paths and ultimately two legacies shaped by each other.
