This week on CBS Mornings, Oprah’s Book Club announced The Many Lives of Mama Love by bestselling author Lara Love Hardin as their 104 book selection. This heartbreaking and emotional memoir was recently released from Simon and Schuster.
“Once you start reading, be prepared, because you won’t want to stop as Lara chronicles how she went from surviving behind bars to becoming a best-selling ghostwriter and author, sharing her harrowing, sometimes hilarious, and often heartbreaking journey from her arrest and conviction to her release and ultimate reinvention,” said Oprah Winfrey.
“Like many women of my generation, I’ve had lots of imaginary conversations with Oprah Winfrey. When she popped into my video conference call and told me she picked my memoir for her first Oprah’s Book Club pick of 2024, I had to ask myself if this was real life or my overactive imagination,” said author Lara Love Hardin. “Her spotlight is humbling and validating and I know it will also shine a light on the shared story of all incarcerated women. Words are inadequate to convey what an incredible, fantastical, dream-fulfilling honor this is as an author, nor how much it means to me that this new plot twist to my story will become a part of the story my children someday tell to their children.”
New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot-caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir.
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.
The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done.
The audiobook is also available from Simon & Schuster Audio, narrated by the author, Lara Love Hardin. Additional content about the author and related themes from the book will be available for readers on OprahDaily.com, the online hub of Oprah’s Book Club.
Photo Credit: Cody Love for Oprah Daily
