Gather Together in My Name by Maya Angelou was first published in 1974 and it’s the second book in the author’s six volume  series of autobiography.

It begins in World War 2 which for some was a good time, jobs were plentiful in civilian life and black people who had been scraping a living doing bottom of the pile jobs had been able to earn good money in factories which were making munitions and other things needed for the war effort.  It was a good time for some, but with the peace all that stopped and unemployment loomed.

Maya got work as a cook in a restaurant, and she was good at it, but one of her male customers showed interest in more than her cooking, and so begins his charm offensive. Maya is in need of love, she’s an easy victim for a handsom older man, but it doesn’t last long. She’s reluctant to move on because her baby son has settled with a baby minder, but Maya’s brother persuades her to move to another state to begin again.

I liked this book but not quite as much as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first one in this series. Maya seems to have been a strange combination of street-wise sassiness and complete naivete where a certain sort of man is concerned. I suppose that more or less being abandoned by her own mother left her vulnerable and open to being abused by scumbag men.