In this incredible second book in a series of autobiographies, the poet, still in her teens, gives birth to a son, tries to keep a job, falls in love, dances, falls out of love, chases after her kidnapped baby, and goes to work in a house of prostitution thinking she is helping the man she loves.
Poet, writer, performer, teacher, and director Maya Angelou was raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and then moved to San Francisco. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she has also written a cookbook, Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, and five poetry collections, including I Shall Not Be Moved and Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?
Praise
Praise
“Engrossing and vital, rich and funny and wise . . . Angelou writes like a song, and like the truth.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A curiously heartening story in which decency, honor, truth, love do exist, imperfectly, fractionally and flickeringly, not in some Platonic realm of the ideal, but in the flawed lives of real men and women.” –The Washington Post
“The book is a gem. It presents a descriptive picture of the texture of the lives and times of many black people in the late forties before the dawn of civil rights. It is so insightful and funny-sad, you catch yourself remembering your own young adulthood.” –Chicago Tribune
“Rich, engaging . . . Angelou tells the story of this dauntless, reckless, foolish girl with few flourishes; it doesn’t need them.” –The New Yorker