Lara Hardin

These personal memoirs are newly available through the Allen County Public Library. “The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing” by Lara Love Hardin The New York Times best-selling author, who was convicted of 32 felonies, recounts her slide from soccer mom to heroin addict to jailhouse “shot caller” and how she made an unlikely comeback despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we’ve ever done.

A writer and literary agent tells the story of how she overcame addiction, a criminal record, and social ostracism to lovingly embrace her “beautiful mess of a life.” As Love Hardin recounts, during adulthood, her love of escape led her to anything—sex, food, Vicodin, and eventually heroin—that could induce self-forgetfulness. By 2008, she was living a double life as a “perfect [suburban] mom” and heroin addict who had bankrupted herself to feed the addiction she shared with her husband.