At age eleven, Goldie Taylor is out riding her new bike when a young man from the neighborhood brutally rapes her. Goldie s mother, dealing with trauma of her own, sends her to live with her aunt, uprooting her from a good school to live in a dangerous, bottomed-out neighborhood in East St. Louis.   Aunt Gerald takes in anyone who asks, but the conditions are harsh. With no bed or personal belongings, Goldie sleeps on the living room floor, beneath a threadbare blanket, amid cousins who abuse her. Plagued by the echoes of trauma and longing for her mother, Goldie s thoughts grow increasingly dark. Until she finds solace in the writings of James Baldwin. And hope in the form of a nurturing teacher who helps her find her voice.   With echoes of Maya Angelou s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Tara Westover’s Educated,  Goldie’s Taylor s debut memoir shines a light on the strictures of race, class and gender in a post-Jim Crow America,