I have read "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou quite a while ago and really liked it. So, I was happy that when one of her books was chosen as a new read for "Emma's Book Club - Our shared shelf".
And I was not disappointed. Maya Angelou's writing is still as gripping as it was in her previous novel. She writes in a way as if you sit there listening to her telling a story. A really good story. Her mother must have been a remarkable woman, as she was remarkable herself, she can find something good in everything, even though she had a difficult life to lead.
I learnt a lot about Maya Angelou and her family but I also learnt a lot about myself and my relationship to my late mother. Everything good but still interesting.
I am certainly going to read more of her books.
From the back cover:
"The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother.
For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence - a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call 'Lady,' revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them.
Delving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou’s rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights."
Interesting. Today I realized (duh) that one of the themes of the memoir I have been writing is motherhood. I have struggled with it all my life. And I am making a list of books to read on that theme to help open up my memories. This one will go on the list!
ReplyDeleteThis is certainly an interesting book to read about motherhood, though Maya Angelou's mother wasn't what you would call the typical mother.
DeleteYou can read a lot of books about motherhood that were not necessarily written about it. A while ago, I took part in a challenge on Facebook called The Motherhood + Jane Austen Book Club. It was really interesting to reread the books by one of my favourite authors with a totally different perspective. Anyway, I loved looking at all the mothers in Jane Austen's book, an author who never was a mother herself. And it was truly interesting.
Hope you will find lots of interesting books for your project.
Happy Reading,
Marianne