Mainline mama A memoir

Keeonna Harris had plans. She was going to go to Spelman, then on to medical school. But at age 14, she began dating Jason and unexpectedly became pregnant. Her trajectory changed, though her resilience and determination did not. Jason was part of a Los Angeles gang. Shortly after their son Tre's birth, Jason was arrested and sentenced to 22 years in prison. Despite her family's resistance, Harris remained dedicated to him. As she earned her college degree, began graduate school, and raised her family, she built relationships with other Mainline Mamas: women who navigated the prison system to see the people they loved. Prisons use visitations as a carrot to keep prisoners in line, exploiting human connection to control those incarcerated. Harris' memoir of self-discovery explores the roles she was expected to play during her life and the freedom she found in building her own future. A story of resilience, family, and humanity in the face of oppression, Mainline Mama is a unique look at the far-reaching impacts of the prison system in America.

In this stunning debut account, Harris, a PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow, discusses raising a child while her husband was incarcerated. Growing up in Los Angeles's Watts neighborhood in the 1980s, Harris harbored dreams of becoming an obstetrician. She got pregnant in ninth grade, however, and shortly after her son's birth, the father, Jason, was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for gang-related crimes. Harris regularly visited and wrote to Jason, and the couple got married while he was still behind bars. In evocative prose, Harris illuminates the experience of coming to "know prisons like a close relative," bonding with other women whose partners were imprisoned, and learning how to maintain her connection with Jason while building a meaningful life apart from him and completing a degree in women's studies. Harris frames her narrative with revealing letters to herself ("To the outside world, you look good.... People assume you're some magical Negro because you don't look crazy, your kids aren't locked up, and Jason got out of prison and now works a regular job") that provide unflinching insight into the plight of women in her position. This affecting dispatch from inside the carceral state is not to be missed. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Feb.)

Learning to navigate the prison system in the name of love unexpectedly taught a woman how to value herself. At 14, Harris dreamed of attending a prestigious Black college, becoming a doctor, and living a perfect life with an equally educated Black man. Instead, she fell in love with Jason, a Mexican American gang member who fathered Harris' first child, then went to prison to serve a 20-year sentence for carjacking, all before he turned 18. Harris pledged to stand by Jason until he was released, without fully understanding what that vow would entail for her as a single "mainline mama" committed to loving a man behind prison walls. With searing honesty, the author reveals how maintaining her connection to Jason forced her to submit to an implacable system that punished inmates and loved ones alike. Jason was state property that could be moved at will; as his partner and eventual wife, Harris was a "criminal" by association and subject to harsh rules governing all forms of interaction. Over time, the author learned to work around the obstacles of loving--and trying to maintain a weekly visiting schedule with--an imprisoned partner by befriending other women who faced the same predicament. But as Harris forged a path to a better life in a world Jason could not access, she also became painfully aware of his limitations and her own need to escape the "prison" of a toxic relationship. Unflinching in its indictment of prisons, this book is also a celebration of female resilience and courage in the face of a penal system meant to break--rather than reform--the lives of incarcerated people and their families. An engrossing memoir about resisting carceral dehumanization through community, connection, and self-love. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.