With her new book, “Mother Mary Comes to Me” (Scribner), Roy turns to her mother, Mary Roy, whom she calls her “most enthralling subject” and her “gangster.” In addition to rearing Arundhati and her older brother alone, in defiance of both family and society, Mary founded an enduring educational establishment and was so persistent an activist that a landmark legal ruling bears her name. For years, Arundhati was estranged from her mother, yet she was never free of her. She struggled against her mother’s dictates even as she remained entwined with her, not unlike an unborn child straining against the walls of the womb, fists and feet pressing for freedom from the very body on which she depends.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter