Arundhati Roys first work of memoir this is a soaring account both intimate and inspiring 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. Born out of the onrush of memories and feelings provoked by her mother Marys death this is the astonishing often disturbing and surprisingly funny memoir of the Arundhati Roys life from childhood to the present from Kerala to Delhi.