Viola Davis relates the memory of when her mother, whom she calls “MaMama,” told her the story of her birth. Surprisingly to Viola, the story was entirely positive, unlike many of her mother’s stories, which tend to be disturbing. Davis’s mother grew up very poor, and she was discriminated against for that as well as for being a dark-skinned Black girl. Growing up in a large family, she was expected to care for her younger siblings, which ended in tragedy after a playing-with-matches incident killed her baby sister. Davis reflects on the hardships of her mother’s life as revealed by the many stories her mother tells her. It is sometimes hard to get her mother to tell secrets, but Davis tries in their conversations. Sometimes there are sudden revelations, like when her mother reveals that the name she has been going by all Davis’s life is not her real name. Other times, the secret is never revealed.

Davis’s father, she says, is simpler. Dan, “MaDaddy,” ran away from an abusive home at fifteen and became a horse groomer at racetracks. The work was a struggle, and he took solace in alcohol, ultimately becoming abusive to her mother. To Viola’s shame, he made her a tool of this abuse by showing her that he was openly cheating on her mother. Her mother refused to leave him, and things got so bad that when he was stabbed one day, Viola hoped he would die. But he lived.

Describing her father’s superstitious beliefs, Davis explains how he believed in “haints,” ghosts and witches who could affect their lives if they did not follow certain rituals. He struggled even more with his internal demons. A defining memory is when a fourteen-year-old Viola stood up to him when he was beating her mother. She describes this as a time when she realized that the world would be a fight to live in and that she was equal to the task.