page_title: Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas
section_title: Plot summary
hierarchical_section_title: Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas / Plot summary
caption_attribution_description: Fillmore Street from Broadway Street. This shot also shows the rest of Fillmore street from Broadway to Marina Blvd.
context_page_description: Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas is the third book of Maya Angelou's seven-volume autobiography series. Set between 1949 and 1955, the book spans Angelou's early twenties. In this volume, Angelou describes her struggles to support her young son, form meaningful relationships, and forge a successful career in the entertainment world. The work's 1976 publication was the first time an African-American woman had expanded her life story into a third volume. Scholar Dolly McPherson calls the book "a graphic portrait of the adult self in bloom", while critic Lyman B. Hagen calls it "a journey of discovery and rebirth".
  In Singin' and Swingin', Angelou examines many of the same subjects and themes in her previous autobiographies including travel, music, race, conflict, and motherhood. Angelou depicts the conflict she felt as a single mother, despite her success as a performer as she travels Europe with the musical Porgy and Bess. Her depictions of her travels, which take up 40 percent of the book, have roots in the African-American slave narrative.
context_section_description: Singin' and Swingin' opens shortly after Angelou's previous autobiography, Gather Together in My Name. Marguerite, or Maya, a single mother with a young son, is in her early twenties, struggling to make a living. Angelou writes in this book, like her previous works, about the full range of her own experiences. As scholar Dolly McPherson states, "When one encounters Maya Angelou in her story, one encounters the humor, the pain, the exuberance, the honesty, and the determination of a human being who has experienced life fully and retained her strong sense of self". Many people around Angelou influence her growth and—as critic Lyman B. Hagen states—"propel Angelou ever forward". The book's opening chapters find Maya concerned with, as Hagen asserts, "apprehension about her son, a desire for a home, and facing racial conflicts, and seeking a career". Maya is offered a job as a salesgirl in a record shop on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. At first she greets her white boss' offers of generosity and friendship with suspicion, but after two months of searching for evidence of racism, Maya begins to "relax and enjoy a world of music". The job allows her to move back into her mother's house and to spend more time with her son.
  While working in the store, Maya meets Tosh Angelos, a Greek sailor. They fall in love, and he is especially fond of her son. Against her mother's wishes, Maya marries Tosh in 1952. At first, the marriage is satisfying, and it seems that Maya has fulfilled her dream of being a housewife, writing "My life began to resemble a Good Housekeeping advertisement." Eventually, Maya begins to resent Tosh's demands that she stay at home; she is also bothered by her friends' negative reaction to her interracial marriage. Maya is disturbed by Tosh's atheism and his control of her life, but does little to challenge his authority. After Tosh tells her son Clyde that there is no God, Maya rebels by secretly attending Black churches. After three years the marriage disintegrates when Tosh announces to Maya that he is "tired of being married". She goes into the hospital for an appendectomy, and after the operation, she announces her desire to return to her grandmother in Stamps, but Tosh informs her that Annie died the day of Maya's operation.
  A single mother once again, Maya begins to find success as a performer. She gets a job dancing and singing at The Purple Onion, a popular nightclub in San Francisco, and—on the recommendation of the club's owners—she changes her name from Marguerite Johnson to the "more exotic" "Maya Angelou". She gains the attention of talent scouts, who offer her a role in Porgy and Bess; she turns down the part, however, because of her obligations to The Purple Onion. When her contract expires, Maya goes to New York City to audition for a part opposite Pearl Bailey, but she turns it down to join a European tour of Porgy and Bess.
  Leaving Clyde with her mother, Maya travels to 22 countries with the touring company in 1954 and 1955, expressing her impressions about her travels. She writes the following about Verona: "I was really in Italy. Not Maya Angelou, the person of pretensions and ambitions, but me, Marguerite Johnson, who had read about Verona and the sad lovers while growing up in a dusty Southern village poorer and more tragic than the historic town in which I now stood."
  Despite Maya's success with Porgy and Bess, she is racked with guilt and regret about leaving her son behind. After receiving bad news about Clyde's health, she quits the tour and returns to San Francisco. Both Clyde and Maya heal from the physical and emotional toll caused by their separation, and she promises never to leave him again. Clyde also announces that he wants to be called "Guy". As Angelou writes: "It took him only one month to train us. He became Guy and we could hardly remember ever calling him anything else".
  Maya is true to her promise; she accepts a job performing in Hawaii, and he goes with her. At the close of the book, mother and son express pride in each other. When he praises her singing, she writes: 
caption: Singin' and Swingin' begins on Fillmore Street (shown here in 2007) in San Francisco.
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