49 pages • 1 hour read
Lara Love HardinThe Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Mama Love
The nickname “Mama Love” symbolizes the author’s reimagined life during and after her incarceration. Hardin takes the name Mama Love while in G Block. This name is given to her after she reads Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now and advises inmates to stop fighting. Likewise, she diffuses a fight by telling the prison’s de facto leader that true power is quiet, rather than loud. This takes off in G Block, and Hardin gains status and power among her peers, rising to a co-leader position. Her meteoric rise can be attributed in part to her friendliness and ability to communicate clearly and in part to her being educated far beyond the other inmates. Leveraging these assets, Hardin finds an audience among the young, impressionable women and relishes her position as their den mother.
When Hardin is released and gains fame as a writer and literary agent, she uses the name Mama Love in the title of her memoir, showing that this persona is integral to her self-concept. The name encompasses the identities that are core to Hardin’s being: her role as a mother and her love for her family.
Beauty
The memoir emphasizes the motif of beauty—as defined by mainstream society—as one of the author’s sources of power and status. Hardin is white, pretty, tall, blonde, and thin, and these attributes grant her privilege both inside and outside of prison. For Hardin, her looks open doors and grant access. It is part of her identity and how she makes her way in a world that favors attractiveness.
At the height of her addiction, Hardin says the drugs make her skinnier, and she feels even more attractive than normal in her body. She is aware of the irony that an unhealthy addiction makes her seem more desirable, as she conforms even more to mainstream society’s ideal of female beauty.
Race and socioeconomic status play a large role in Hardin’s perceived attractiveness and in her ability to blend into her wealthy California neighborhood. Hardin gains access to book clubs, PTA meetings, soccer games, and school parking lots because she looks like the other soccer moms. From there, she steals money and credit cards from their unlocked cars. Her peers do not perceive her as an outsider or a threat, and Hardin uses this to her advantage.
Love and Light
The motif of sending love and light into the world—including to one’s enemies—represents the author’s healing journey. Hardin reads The Power of Now by the German self-help expert and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle in G Block, and it helps transform her life. The Power of Now advises readers to live fully in the present and send love and light to everyone they encounter. Hardin puts this into practice in prison, and once released, she sends love and light to her self-appointed enemy, Darcy Love. Throughout the narrative, Hardin refers back to the importance of being present and sending love and light into the world as a form of forgiving herself and others.
