The celebrated author has a new autobiography focusing on her mother, about whom she finally “felt ready” to write and answer questions.
In her celebrated 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou describes being raised by her grandmother after being abandoned by her mother at age 3. Her mother, Vivian Baxter, is the focus of Angelou’s latest book, Mom & Me & Mom (Random House, out Tuesday.)
1. Why two moms in the book’s title?
I didn’t really see much of my mom until I was about 13. For a long time, I resented that. I resisted her. I thought of her as foreign. I refused to call her Mother. I called her Lady, and she was OK with that. She didn’t insist I call her Mother. But now, I think of her as Mom. When she lived in Stockton (Calif.), everyone called her Lady but didn’t know why. They named a park there after her.
2. Your mother, who was a nurse, merchant marine and community activist, died in 1991 when she was 79. Why write about her now?
I felt ready to do it. I’m older. Now I’m a mother and a grandmother and a great-grandmother. I was ready for questions about her.
3. In your book, you describe the hospital scene when your mother was in a coma, the day before she died. You held her hand and told her: “You were a terrible mother of small children, but there has never been anyone greater than you as a mother of a young adult.” Was that hard to say and write?
I have known that for a long time. When I was very young, she had no patience with me or my brother. But when I was 16 and I told her I was pregnant, she asked if I loved the baby’s father. I said, “No,” and she said, “Well, then we’re not going to ruin three lives.” She never made me feel ashamed.
CLICK HERE to read story
article courtesy of usatoday.com
