The reader experiences the political and social climate of the 1950s and '60s through the lens of this Angelou's experience. Because she is a particularly active and talented individual, her first-person narrator provides insight into an especially broad range of events. Her private life is, of course, explored and recounted in great detail. So too, however, is the public life of a very public woman.

Though The Heart of a Woman recounts the closing years of Angelou's theatrical career, her fame, established in the years recounted in previous volumes, gives her access to some of her era's most notable people. For example, the first chapter shows Angelou meeting and befriending the famous jazz singer Billie Holiday. Her friend Wilkie makes the introduction, giving the reader a glimpse of the character of a highly talented and tragically short-lived singer.

Though the information conveyed about Holiday's life and mannerisms...