I've read all of the Maya Angelou memoirs and really enjoyed them - what a fascinating life at a fascinating time in history. The first volume (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) is very goood - it covers her childhood in the South of the US in the 1930s. In this book (the second volume):
"...Angelou is a young mother in California, unemployed, embarking on brief affairs and transient jobs in shops and nightclubs, turning to prostitution and the world of narcotics..."