This book explores the journey-often filled with dangerous, unexpected circumstances-through which Maya and her mother learned to find a kind of trust and caring for each other. However, she tended to use unconventional-but often wise-ways of offering that support. Lady was determined to show Maya that even though she had not been present in her early life, she would never let her down after that. But, Lady, their mother, seemed determined to find a way for herself and Maya to achieve a close mother-daughter relationship (often in spite of themselves) as they had to get to know, and get used to each other. There came a time when she and her brother were unexpectedly sent back to live with their mother-something that young Maya was not prepared for. In this one, she describes the complicated and unpredictable relationship with her mother, whom she referred to for many years as “Lady.” In her hallmark terse style of writing, she describes how she and her brother were sent to her paternal grandmother’s in Arkansas for several years, where she found a sense of security, even though recovering from the trauma of childhood rape. Maya Angelou has written another in a series of autobiographical books about her life. Mother 'Lady's' influence on Angelou's development 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.ĭelving 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. 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. 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. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother.įor 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. The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple best-selling autobiographies.

Maya angelou my mom and me