Gather Together in My Name (1974)

I have to admit, this was a strange read for me. There was something more perfunctory about this book than Caged Bird...it mostly just careened from one episode to the next with little time for reflection. At times it had the most cringe-worthy moments. She was rather viciously homophobic when she exploited her lesbian friends, though she attributed it to wanting revenge (for something fairly innocuous), and I was worried I'd reach the end of the book before she realized how terrible L.D. was. But then I realized I'd found its beauty. This installment of her autobiographical series is uncomfortable...exactly as uncomfortable as it is to remember myself at her age. So naive and stubborn in thinking we know it all. Angelou is a better person than I because she had the courage to write it without letting hindsight soften the foolhardiness. And it being so episodic requires the reader to spend more time reading between the lines and not just rely upon an interpretation from Angelou. She is, indeed, a phenomenal woman. ( )

There is nothing glossed over in this second installment of Maya Angelou's autobiography. It chronicles her late teen years, when her drive to provide for her son and her need to be provided for by someone else, someone who would love her, led her to participate in some sordid activities. She was trusting of the untrustworthy. I had to remind myself that this story eventually has a happy ending, though not in this book. As usual, the book is wonderfully written. ( )

“Be the best of anything you get into. If you want to be a whore, it's your life. Be a damn good one. Don't chippy at anything. Anything worth having is worth working for.'

This is the second part of Angelou’s autobiography. It continues on from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings left off with Angelou giving birth of her son and leaving her grandmother in rural Arkansas to live in San Francisco. She is seventeen years old and the reader learns of her attempts to establish an independent life for herself and her son, taking a variety of low skill jobs including cook, waitress and perhaps most surprisingly of all as a brothel madam, her early love affairs including her ill-fated relationship with a married man. She is a precocious teenager who believes is tough enough to stand on her own two feet and she does often manage to get what she wants, at least in the short term, but it never lasts.

The title refers to all the mistakes that Angelou made in this period of her life and she certainly made some. As a single mother she had little option from working long, anti-social hours often leaving her son to be brought up by others and it is not until he goes missing does she acknowledge that she is little more than a child herself. She is naive and wants to believe in the best of others but this trust and desire to please often leads her down some very dark alleys, yet she never shies away from admitting to her mistakes.

Angelou’s life is undoubtedly extraordinary but never fantastical. She, like everyone else, learns that decisions made by ourselves and other people as well as forces outside of our control when we are young often affects our later life choices. The career paths that we set ourselves as teenagers can be deflected by unforeseen events meaning that the life that we actually live is often very different from the one we envisaged. This book is a fine example of that fact and also proves that sexual grooming is not a new phenomenon. ( )

The second of Maya Angelou's autobiography. And it's a wonderful book. Her life by the young age of 20 had been so complex and she had experienced so much. Learning about her life and what she faced, gives hope that no matter what life throws at you, you can still make something of yourself. ( )

I could not put this book down. I read it in one day. The second in a series of autobiographies by Maya Angelou, "Gather Together in My Name" covers a shorter time frame (only about two years, but so much happened to her during that time) than "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings". This installment begins shortly after the birth of her son when she was still just a teenager, and continues on with her struggles to support herself and her baby. Being young, she doesn't make very many good choices -- her taste in men at this time was appalling -- and often leaves her son with people she barely knew in order to try to make a living at a range of jobs that included restaurant cook, dancer, madam, and prostitute (the latter two for just short periods). It boggles the mind knowing that Angelou eventually became a highly acclaimed author (deservingly so, her prose is wonderful here although not quite as good as her first memoir) and poet. There is not yet any hint that she will take this path and I really want to continue this autobiographical series to find out when, where, and how it all "clicked" for her -- although I know it could not have been an overnight process. ( )