Gabrielle is sitting in an apartment in Manhattan, watching the clock. Her daughter has been kidnapped, she's shot and killed a man, and is trying to negotiate with the kidnapper. He wants the October List, and he wants money. The doorbell rings...
That is the end of Gabrielle's story, and the first chapter of the novel. The next chapter is the scene which came before, and what follows is what happened before that.
The culmination of a unique achievement in modern American literature: the six volumes of autobiography that began more than thirty years ago with the appearance of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings A Song Flung Up to Heaven opens as Maya Angelou returns from Africa to the United States to work with Malcolm X. But first she has to journey to California to be reunited with her mother and brother. No sooner...
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