Book Review: The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing by Lara Love Hardin
The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing by Lara Love Hardin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: August 1, 2023
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors’ credit cards.
Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She learns that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly finds the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder to become the “shot caller,” showing that jailhouse politics aren’t that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend.
When she’s released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she’s legally co-opting other people’s identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with The Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin—there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, prove to herself that she is more good than bad, and much more.
Lara Love Hardin seemed like she had the perfect life but behind the scenes, she and her husband were doing heroin. She was stealing credit cards, even from her neighbors, to fund her habit. It doesn’t take long for her crimes to catch up to her.
She’s convicted of thirty-two felonies – each transaction on each card counts as one crime. Although the maximum sentence was several years in federal prison, she is able to get a deal and serve around a year in jail. Even with a relatively short sentence, life in jail is still hard. Luckily, Lara learns to navigate the system quickly and becomes known as Mama Love to her fellow inmates because of the good advice she gives them and her caring nature.
After Lara is released she faces one obstacle after another. It was eye-opening how hard it is for former convicts to find a job and housing while keeping up with all of the required appointments for drug tests and with probation officers, etc. Lara is white and was coming from a place of privilege when she was released. She earned a master’s degree and was a business owner before she became an addict and she still struggled immensely after her release. I think it would be near impossible for someone without an education to stay out of jail after having been once. Also, if she were Black, I’m sure her sentence would have been much longer.
Eventually, she finds a job with a literary agency and works her way up to being a successful ghostwriter. She still has to work through the shame and guilt she feels about being an addict and being away from her children while in jail. As an aside – her husband (now ex-husband, thankfully) was unbelievably terrible. When she was in the hospital with an infection, he came to visit her and shot heroin into her IV! That’s just one example. Ugh.
I found Lara’s story inspiring. I was impressed with her attitude. She took full responsibility for her actions and didn’t make any excuses. I learned a lot about how the judicial system and prison work, especially what happens after someone is released. I’m glad I chose The Many Lives of Mama Love as my Book of the Month pick for August.Highly recommended.
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