Autobiography.

The novel follows Marguerite's (later called My, or Maya, by her brother) young life and the struggles she undergoes in the segregated South. Abandoned by their parents at an early age, she and her older brother, Bailey, are sent to live with their maternal grandmother ("Momma") and crippled uncle in Stamps, Arkansas, where her grandmother operates a general store. The family later moves to St. Louis and then California, where Mary becomes pregnant, a fact which she hides from her family until her eighth month of pregnancy in order to graduate from high school.

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