Entertainment
Book excerpt: “Mother Mary Comes to Me” by Arundhati Roy
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Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize-winning author of “The God of Small Things,” is now publishing her first memoir.
In “Mother Mary Comes to Me” (to be released September 2 by Scribner), Roy explores her formative and tumultuous relationship with her mother, and how it shaped her life and career.
Read an excerpt below.
“Mother Mary Comes to Me” by Arundhati Roy
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She chose September, that most excellent month, to make her move. The monsoon had receded, leaving Kerala gleaming like an emerald strip between the mountains and the sea. As the plane banked to land, and the earth rose to greet us, I couldn’t believe that topography could cause such palpable, physical pain. I had never known that beloved landscape, never imagined it, never evoked it, without her being part of it. I couldn’t think of those hills and trees, the green rivers, the shrinking, cemented-over rice fields with giant billboards rising out of them advertising awful wedding saris and even worse jewelry, without thinking of her. She was woven through it all, taller in my mind than any billboard, more perilous than any river in spate, more relentless than the rain, more present than the sea itself. How could this have happened? How? She checked out with no advance notice. Typically unpredictable.
The church didn’t want her. She didn’t want the church. (There was savage history there, nothing to do with God.) So given her standing in our town, and given our town, we had to fashion a fitting funeral for her. The local papers reported her passing on their front pages, most national papers mentioned it, too. The internet lit up with an outpouring of love from generations of students who had studied in the school she founded, whose lives she had transformed, and from others who knew of the legendary legal battle she had waged and won for equal inheritance rights for Christian women in Kerala. The deluge of obituaries made it even more crucial that we do the right thing and send her on the way she deserved. But what was that right thing? Fortunately, on the day she died the school was closed and the children had gone home. The campus was ours. It was a huge relief. Perhaps she had planned that, too.
Conversations about her death and its consequences for us, especially me, had begun when I was three years old. She was thirty then, debilitated by asthma, dead broke (her only asset was a bachelor’s degree in education), and she had just walked out on her husband—my father, I should say, although somehow that comes out sounding strange. She was almost eighty-nine when she died, so we had sixty years to discuss her imminent death and her latest will and testament, which, given her preoccupation with inheritance and wills, she rewrote almost every other week. The number of false alarms, close shaves, and great escapes that she racked up would have given Houdini pause for thought. They lulled us into a sort of catastrophe complacency. I truly believed she would outlive me. When she didn’t, I was wrecked, heart-smashed. I am puzzled and more than a little ashamed by the intensity of my response.
Excerpted from “Mother Mary Comes to Me” by Arundhati Roy. Copyright © 2025 by Arundhati Roy. Reprinted with permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster.
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“Mother Mary Comes to Me” by Arundhati Roy
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Entertainment
Nick Jonas excites fans with live rendition of unreleased song ‘Gut Punch’
Nick Jonas sent his fans into a frenzy with a live rendition of his unreleased song, titled Gut Punch.
On Saturday, December 20, during Jonas Brothers: JONAS20 Greetings From Your Hometown Tour stop in Baltimore, MD, the youngest vocalist of the rock band treated the lucky concert goers with the first ever live performance of his upcoming song.
The following day, he reposted a fan-captured video of the moment on his Instagram Stories.
The TikTok was captioned, “Nick Jonas performs his upcoming solo single Gut Punch tonight in Baltimore.”
The deeply personal track, inspired by self-criticism and learning self-grace, features the lyrics “Hit me like a gut punch, I hurt my own feelings.”
Gut Punch is Nick’s new single from his upcoming solo album Sunday Best, dropping on New Year’s Day 2026.
The 33-year-old musician, who most recently appeared on Broadway in The Last Five Years, has revealed that he will release his new single, Gut Punch, on January 1st.
The track serves as the first look at his forthcoming solo album arriving February 6th via Republic Records.
As for the siblings’ 20th-anniversary tour, Nick, Joe and Kevin Jonas are scheduled to perform in New York, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Dec 22.
Followed by a show in Daily’s Place, Jacksonville, Fl, on December 30 and a show in Hard Rock Live, Hollywood, FL, on December 31, the tour will finally come to an end with the year 2025.
Entertainment
Who’s Kyle Chrisley? Todd Chrisley’s son arrested for domestic assault months after Trump pardon
In a disturbing turn of events, Kyle Chrisley, the eldest son of TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, was arrested by the authorities on Saturday night, December 20, in Rutherford County on charges of domestic violence.
This is not the first time he has been detained, the arrest comes just a few months after his parents were pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kyle was booked into the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA.
The framed charges against him reportedly include domestic assault, public intoxication, and more.
Who’s Kyle Chrisley?
Kyle Chrisley is the firstborn of a television personality and real estate entrepreneur best known as the head of the reality show Chrisley Knows Best.
Todd shares Kyle and daughter Lindsie, 35, with ex-wife Teresa Terry and shares three children with his current spouse, Julie Chrisley—Savannah, 28, Chase, 29, and Grayson, 19.
Kyle has faced multiple past legal troubles, including charges of domestic assault, public intoxication, disorderly conduct, three counts of assaulting an emergency worker, and resisting arrest, as reported by TMZ.
In March 2023, Kyle was arrested on a felony aggravated assault charge and released after posting a $3,000 bond, and the case was later dropped for undisclosed reasons.
Kyle’s attorney, Wesley Clark, said the suit aims to hold officials accountable and prevent other families from enduring the same frightening experience as the Chrisleys.
Kyle Chrisley’s recent arrest comes only months after his parents, Todd and Julie, were freed from prison via a pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Todd and Julie had served 28 months of imprisonment after being convicted of tax evasion and bank and wire fraud, though they have consistently maintained their innocence.
Entertainment
Sarah Ferguson issues apology in personal note to royals after downfall
Sarah Ferguson appears to reeling from the humiliation of being completely cut off from the royal family and is now trying to grovel her way into gaining back some sympathy.
The former Duchess of York was also ousted after King Charles removed all the royal honours and titles from her ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. They both were found to have a shady connection to the paedophile financier Jeffery Epstein forcing the monarch to take a severe action after public backlash.
Previously, Sarah and Andrew had a tradition to send Christmas cards to family and friends. This year, with Christmas around the corner, Fergie had been signing the festive cards alone to send out to the royals, per DailyMail author Barbara Davies.
Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie’s mum had been slowly earning the trust and favour of the royals and had even attended the Sandringham Walk in 2023. However, all of that fell apart when the controversies lined up against the Yorks.
They are also set to vacate the Royal Lodge in the first half of 2026 which would officially (and hopefully for royals) mark the end of the chapter.
“With the long-divorced couple finally preparing to go their separate ways, 66-year-old Sarah, it is understood, has been signing her cards alone,” a source revealed.
They added that the cards which are addressed to members of the Royal Family have “a gushing personalised apology” written for causing the trouble through her past bad decisions.
In what is being termed as a ‘desperate’ attempt, Fergie is making a plea to the royals to somehow prove a little contrition that she feels. The source shared that she had forlornly written on the cards: “I hope we’ll meet again”.
It is suggested that Sarah will be along with Andrew for Christmas this year as they are also banned from all royal family private celebrations. Meanwhile, their eldest daughter Beatrice is going abroad with her family and friends.
Princess Eugenie is yet to decide, but it is likely that she would follow her sister’s strategy to avoid drama.
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