by Maya Angelou
First published 1997
Maya Angelou returns in this searing memoir of young motherhood and survival. At just sixteen, she's thrust into an unforgiving world—a single mother struggling to support her infant son in Depression-era California. Working as a streetcar conductor, sex worker, and dancer, she confronts brutal racism, sexual violence, and economic desperation with unflinching resilience. Her survival depends not on grand gestures, but on razor-sharp wit and impossible choices. Each chapter reveals another layer of her fight to protect her child and herself in a system designed to break Black women. This is not a story of triumph, but of raw, unvarnished endurance.
Genres: 20th-century, american, african-american, autobiography, memoir, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: raw-endurance, survival
Setting: American South, California
Period: 20th-Century, 21st-Century
224 pages · Paperback · Bantam
Content warnings: racism, sexual-assault, sexual-content