In this book. Maya, still known as "Marguerite," or "Rita," has just given birth to her son Clyde, and is living with her mother and stepfather in San Francisco. The book follows Maya from the ages of 17-19, through a series of relationships, jobs, and towns as she attempts to raise her son and to find her place in the world this book continues from the last point in her other book , and in this book he learns the ways to overcomes racism, sexism, and her continued victimization.
Maya goes from job to job and from relationship to relationship, hoping that her true love will come soon. Some funny and dangerous events occur throughout the book while Maya tries to care for herself and her son. In San Diego, Maya becomes a manager for two lesbian prostitutes. When threatened with the idea that she could lose her son for her illegal activities, she and Clyde escape to her grandmother's home in Stamps, Arkansas. Her grandmother sends them to San Francisco for their safety and protection after physically punishing Maya for confronting two white women in a department store. This shows …show more content…
D. Tolbrook, who seduces Maya and introduces her to prostitution. Her mother's hospitalization and death of her Brother, Bailey's wife drives Rita to her mother's home. She leaves her young son with a caretaker, Big Mary, but when she returns for him, she finds that Big Mary had disappeared with Clyde. She tries to get help from Tolbrook, who puts yells at her when she finds him at his home and requests that he help her find her son. She finally realizes that he had been taking advantage of her, but is able to trace Big Mary and Clyde to Bakersfield, California, and has an emotional reunion with her son. She writes, "In the plowed farmyard near Bakersfield, I began to understand that uniqueness of the person. He was three and I was nineteen, and never again would I think of him as a beautiful appendage of