The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing by American author Lara Love Hardin is a redemption memoir by a formerly incarcerated felon who finds peace in writing, forgiveness, and owning her story. She is a New York Times best-selling co-writer and author and runs her own literary agency. The memoir was published in 2023 and is being adapted for a TV comedy series. The story deals heavily with themes of Addiction as a Lifelong Struggle, Understanding the Criminal Justice System, and The Power of Blended Families.

This guide refers to the edition of the memoir published by Simon & Schuster in 2023.

Content Warning: The guide contains descriptions of addiction, drug abuse, suicidal ideation, sexual abuse, incarceration, abusive relationships, and racism that appear in the source text.

Summary

The story is told from Hardin’s first-person present-tense point of view and moves chronologically through various stages of her life over 22 named chapters.

The memoir begins with Hardin’s recollections of childhood and the observation that all her addictions, including her childhood addiction to reading, were fueled by the desire to escape. The first in her family to attend college, she studied creative writing to further her goal of escapism. Soon she turned to other addictions, including food, sex, spending money, and, finally, opiates. Vicodin led to heroin, which helped her feel “peace, joy, and escape” (4). Then, it took everything from her life.

In the book’s first incident, Hardin takes her three-year-old son, Kaden, with her to a hotel spa, which she books using a stolen credit card. She sneaks her dog and belongings in through the back door and tries to smoke the remnants of black tar heroin on a piece of old, burned foil while waiting for her husband, DJ Jackson, to arrive with heroin. She justifies her crimes by convincing herself that her identity theft victims are faceless corporations or wealthy soccer moms who lead worry-free lives. When DJ arrives, they argue about co-parenting; they each have children from previous marriages, and Hardin’s ex-husband is now keeping her three boys because she has become unreliable.

The hotel detects Hardin’s credit card fraud, and she flees with Kaden. Sometime later, the police arrest Hardin and DJ in their upscale California home. Kaden is taken by Child Protective Services before Hardin’s ex-husband gets temporary custody of him with his second wife. Hardin’s business as a pet cemetery owner is failing, and she and DJ are behind on house and car payments. DJ has been selling their possessions to fuel the heroin habit, and little of their wealthy suburban life remains.

In jail awaiting bail or sentencing, Hardin befriends many of the incarcerated women of G Block, forming strong bonds with them that will last a lifetime. They dub her Mama Love, a nickname in which she takes pride. Despite detoxing in jail, Hardin returns to heroin as soon as she is released on bail. She and DJ go on a drug binge as they worry about losing custody of Kaden permanently. Despite facing 27 years in prison after pleading guilty to 32 felonies, including identity theft, credit card fraud, gun possession, and drug use, Hardin only receives a one-year sentence in county prison with the possibility of regaining custody of her son afterward. Unbeknownst to the court, she is smuggling drugs in her vagina during her sentencing.

Hardin’s privilege as a beautiful blond, white woman allows her to skirt the rules in prison. She sneaks heroin into G Block for her friends and complains about the food, water pressure, and work conditions of the jail. Continued heroin use lands her in the emergency room, and she acknowledges that she could lose her son forever if she cannot meet reunification requirements set by the court, which requires sobriety, a job, and a safe home for Kaden.

Hardin detoxes again, promising never to relapse. In the county prison, she is given more freedom and several job opportunities that allow her to work her way to the top. Her children visit her in prison, and Kaden comes several times a week. Hardin is given every opportunity to correct her life and her mistakes, though she remains blind to the privilege and opportunity afforded to her that her cellmates do not receive.

She turns her life around with the help of Gemma, a rehabilitation program for incarcerated felons that allows her to leave the prison during the day. She is released early and works hard to maintain the terms of her complicated probation, eventually winning sole custody of Kaden and divorcing DJ, who is still using heroin. She gets a job at a literary agency, concealing her felonies and her past, and gets a small apartment where Kaden has his own room.

Hardin’s boss, Doug Abrams, finds out about her past after Googling her but decides not to fire her. They form a lasting bond, and Hardin works hard to continuously prove herself. Writing becomes her new addiction. Over the course of the next decade, she co-authors several best-selling books at Abram’s agency, called Idea Architects, including books by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and Anthony Ray Hinton, a falsely accused inmate on death row. Hinton’s book is picked up by Oprah, and Hardin flies to New York to meet with her. Oprah tells Hardin that power is putting your name on things. Inspired, Hardin decides to try honesty after over a decade of keeping her past a secret.

She becomes a standup comic, using her incarceration as material, and does a TEDx Talk on hope, admitting the most shameful thing about herself to total strangers. Finally, in writing the memoir, Hardin reveals everything about the worst version of herself before revealing that she has found peace, acceptance, and self-forgiveness in the true power of knowing that the worst Lara Love Hardin isn’t the only one she has been. She has had many lives, some good and others bad, but all have led her to the life she always wanted.