March Classes

Mother Mary Comes to Me (2025) by Arundhati Roy

In this unsparing, darkly funny memoir, award-winning novelist Arundhati Roy captures her complex relationship with her fierce and formidable mother who shaped Roy’s life as a writer and activist yet left her emotionally bruised. Named one of the top ten books of 2025 by the New York Times Book Review, Roy’s raw, sometimes disturbing narrative takes its title from the Beatles song “Let It Be” and attempts to make sense of her complicated feelings in the aftermath of her mother Mary’s death. Themes from this intellectually stimulating and emotionally riveting book include family relationships, intergenerational violence, colonialism's legacy, religious persecution, environmental sustainability, free speech, and more.

Thursday, March 12 • 11:00am-12:15pm • Zoom • Course 13803 • $35

Flesh (2025) by David Szalay

Winner of the 2025 Booker Prize, this dark, spare novel centers on the rocky unraveling life of protagonist István from adolescence to old age. István is an isolated teenager growing up in Hungary at the start of the book, befriended by a bored and lonely woman in her 40s, living in the opposite flat. Over time, he experiences a series of traumas beyond his control and remains emotionally detached, even as his fortunes upon moving to London change dramatically. Sex in the book is transactional, violence occurs without warning, and fortune comes and goes through random luck in István’s otherwise ordinary and numb existence. Szalay’s minimalist prose captures the essence of István’s empty life.

Tuesday, March 17 • 10:00am-11:30am • Zoom • Course 13682 • $35

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (2025) by Rabih Alameddine

Winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction, this non-linear tragicomic novel is narrated in first person from the perspective of Raja, a self-deprecating Lebanese, gay, philosophy teacher. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, has no boundaries and views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. A modern family saga, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) tells the unforgettable story of a Raja’s six decades of life, full of absurdities, mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, forgiveness, and love.

Wednesday, March 18 • 1:00pm-2:30pm • Zoom • Course 13802 • $35