Mother Mary Comes to Me Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Bully Parenting Hurts: Cycles of Abuse and our BookBrowse Review of Mother Mary Comes to Me.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. In the opening pages, Roy writes: "I have thought of my own life as a footnote to the things that really matter ... Maybe I pitched my tent where the wind blows strongest hoping it would blow my heart clean out of my body. Perhaps what I am about to write is a betrayal of my younger self by the person I have become" (3). In these lines, Roy names some of the ways she's tried to understand herself: as a footnote; as the unwitting owner of a heart; as a betrayer of a younger version of herself that she was forced to leave behind in order to live. What is the tone of these descriptions of herself? What effect did they have on you?
2. The God of Small Things, Roy's debut novel and a critical and bestselling phenomenon, is referenced often in the first few chapters, as the novel hews closely to Roy's own life. She notes that the dedication page she wrote for the novel contains "a lie. A good one. I crafted it—'she loved me enough to let me go' ... [Mrs. Roy] quoted it often, as though it were God's truth" (4). But, Roy admits, the actual truth is that "I left my mother ... to be able to continue to love her. Staying would have made that impossible." Consider these two statements—what is the difference between them?
3. At the end of the first chapter, Roy credits her lifelong pursuit of understanding her mother as the thing that made her a writer—and notes that "perhaps even more than a daughter mourning the passing of her mother, I mourn her as a writer who has lost her most enthralling subject" (7). What is the difference between mourning someone as a daughter and as a writer? What is the difference between mourning a mother and a subject?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Scribner. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.