Upcoming

CPS Lecture #163: lara love hardin on the many lives of mama love

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 at 6:00 PM - Sign Up Coming Soon!

Haight Ashbury District, San Francisco

“Once you start reading, be prepared, because you won’t want to stop.” —Oprah Winfrey

No one expects the police to knock on the door of 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 finds 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 learns the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder and acquires the nickname “Mama Love,” 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, and prove to herself that she is more good than bad, among other essential lessons.

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.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • 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.

About

CPS Lectures is a free discussion series that takes place every few months in San Francisco. It is a program of the nonprofit The diaTribe Foundation. The series honors the memory of Cyril Patrick Shaughnessy, Jr., Kelly's father, who died in late 2002 and loved discussions and learning. 

RSVP required for this free event. You will be given a chance to donate to our nonprofit, The diaTribe Foundation, when you register - this is completely optional. Thank you to all those who have given to date, which has been very generous and has helped enormously to offset the cost of drinks and food, occasional air tickets to speakers, and low-key management of the event.

If you RSVP yes and have to cancel, please do so within 24 hours of our event.