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.
Chapters 17-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “The Four-Minute Mile”
Hardin does well at the literary agency and is asked to help collaboratively write Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s book, The Book of Forgiving. She and Abrams, the owner of the company, outline Tutu’s book. They hold virtual calls with Tutu and work through the project as a team. She writes a chapter on self-forgiveness and then volunteers to teach a course based on that chapter at Gemma. At this point, she’s been out of prison and sober for four years.
She helps the inmates in the Gemma program through the forgiveness steps in Tutu’s draft book and discusses how important it is to ask for forgiveness. Meanwhile, Hardin continues to conceal her past and has not asked her neighbors for forgiveness, explaining, “I teach what I’m not brave enough to do myself” (247).
Darcy calls and tells Hardin that Bryan is cheating on her, which Hardin already suspected. She helps Darcy through a period of depression and opiate abuse. Hardin tells Darcy about a man she’s dating named Sam, who has two kids and dotes on her. Hardin forgives Darcy for trying to keep her in jail, and they spend Mother’s Day together with the four boys before Darcy divorces Bryan and moves to Boston.
Chapter 18 Summary: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
Hardin moves in with Sam and starts a new co-writing project with a surgeon. Their new house, rented to them by Abrams, has room for all of their kids and stepchildren, and after five years, Hardin feels like she’s gotten back what she lost to heroin use.
One day, she is pulled over for a broken taillight, and several squad cars respond. The cops search her car in front of her children but find nothing. She has not violated probation, and they are released, though Hardin is furious. Her neighbors find out that she was the “Neighbor From Hell” and complain to Abrams and the landlord. They sit down together, but Hardin does not want to defend herself and instead is angry. Later, Sam proposes, and Hardin accepts. They plan a wedding for the following summer, only to elope and honeymoon in Vegas instead.
Chapter 19 Summary: “The Dali Lama Hates Me”
Hardin prepares to travel to India to work on The Book of Joy with Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama. She has not disclosed her background and admits, “I keep my secret and pray daily that our authors don’t find out” (264). Two of her co-written books have made it to the New York Times bestsellers list, and she’s managed to keep her secret at Idea Architects from everyone but her boss for years.
Hardin meets with a friend from her soccer mom days, but the attempt at rekindling a friendship falters. She doesn’t ask for forgiveness and understands that her past victims will never forgive her.
Hardin dines with Tutu and the Dalai Lama and works on their project. Internally, she justifies her presence: “I did not hustle or cheat or defraud my way into this room—I was invited and welcomed” (270). Her meeting with the two holy men allows her to forgive herself, to feel like a work in progress that has a right to be, to feel joy, and to live. She gets off probation by accepting that her delinquent restitution payments will go to collections and ruin her credit. She co-writes a project with Ray Hinton, a wrongfully incarcerated man who spent 30 years on death row, and shares her past with him. They become friends and confidants as they work on the book, The Sun Does Shine. She slowly starts to share her story, realizing that being honest draws people to her rather than pushes them away. She begins to do standup comedy using her incarceration as material, and she is honest with new friends from improv class.
Her progress is halted when Doug, Hinton’s agent, receives an anonymous email from “one@victimoflaralove.com” that threatens to inform the district attorney that Hardin is capitalizing on her prior crimes. In response, Abrams adds her to their business accounts to show that the agency, not Hardin, is receiving the profits. Feeling protected, Hardin finds peace in her newfound friends, her job, and the life she’s built during the nine years since her arrest.
Chapters 17-19 Analysis
In these chapters, Hardin is fully reintegrated into society and has been clean for nearly a decade. She talks little of Kaden, DJ, and her time in prison and instead pours herself into her work, which she admits is her new addiction. Time moves rapidly in these chapters, and Hardin glosses over much, focusing primarily on her achievements and moments in which she feels unfairly victimized. She is desperate for approval and eager for her boss and co-authors to recognize her talents and not judge her for her past.
In early chapters, Hardin’s cornerstone is family, especially Kaden, highlighting The Power of Blended Families. Once she gets a job that earns her attention, respect, and admiration, Kaden’s importance in the narrative diminishes for the time being. She does not discuss how he coped with the transition to temporary care while she was incarcerated or his adaptation upon their reunion. She described the turmoil her older sons endured but spends little time addressing the harm her actions caused them. Instead, Hardin focuses on her marriage to Sam, her new blended family, and her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu, highlighting how her addiction to approval has caused other important aspects of her life, like Kaden or owning up to her past behavior, to fall by the wayside. However, her work project proves cathartic, and during the meeting in India, she begins to forgive herself for her crimes and to view herself in a new way. In the presence of the forgiveness and joy offered by the religious leaders, Hardin accepts the grace she has denied herself for so long, highlighting Addiction as a Lifelong Struggle.
Hardin’s status as an unreliable narrator has not fully vanished, and her sobriety remains tenuous. The new ethical problem she faces is her ability to profit based on her crimes. While it is therapeutic for her to share her story, she does not consider the victims she has harmed. Everyone in her life, including Sam, Abrams, Doug, her co-authors, and her landlord, are on her side, yet her history of trauma and incarceration still leave her feeling victimized. This highlights the theme of Understanding the Criminal Justice System, which includes lasting emotional and psychological trauma.
