[Gather Together in My Name] is the second volume in the story of [Maya Angelou's] life, a series that she intended to continue "every three years until she is recognized as the contemporary Black Proust." It may be that she will fall short of that avowed ambition but, if one recalls her first successful book I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings …, and reads this second one, it is apparent that Angelou is keen, sharp, earthy, imaginative, lyrical, spiritually bold, and seems destined for distinction.

The book concerns her travails in California between the ages of 17 and 19 at the end of World War II…. Rita [the name Maya calls herself in this book] scrapes, in these two frantic years, from the bottom to the level at the end of the book when, like Voltaire's Candide, she asserts: "I had given a promise and found my innocence. I swore...