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Oprah chooses “The Many Lives of Mama Love” as newest book club pick
Oprah Winfrey announced her new book club selection, “The Many Lives of Mama Love” by Lara Love Hardin, a memoir that dives deep into Hardin’s tumultuous journey from a life marred by addiction and crime to one of profound change and empathy.
Winfrey said what she really appreciated about “The Many Lives of Mama Love” was that Hardin is still “evolving into the woman she was intended to be.”
“I was turned on by that idea of somebody who has spent their whole life pretending to be somebody else now writes a book that is the truth of themselves,” said Winfrey.
In an interview at her northern California home, Hardin recounted her past, including her dramatic arrests for stealing credit cards and bank fraud.
“The last time I walked through that door, I was in handcuffs,” said the author. “But I never got to come back to the house again.”
Hardin recalled her life in the small community in Aptos, California, where she made headlines being dubbed “the neighbor from hell.” She said she would sometimes hide in the bathroom of the home’s master bedroom and do drugs.
“I was just hiding in there, smoking heroin. Like, that was how small my world (was).”
Hardin’s past includes 32 felony charges, 15 years as an addict and two failed marriages that nearly separated her from her children permanently. She chose a plea deal to ensure she wouldn’t lose her boys. In 2009, she was sentenced to a year in jail.
“I didn’t want the next time I saw my children to have them be in their 30s,” she said.
In jail, Hardin earned the nickname “Mama Love,” helping fellow inmates by writing letters that would present them in the best light to judges. This experience, coupled with her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of California, helped her find her voice and a new purpose.
Post-jail, Hardin’s writing talent became her salvation, eventually leading her to work as a ghostwriter for notable figures, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Her collaboration with Anthony Ray Hinton on his book “The Sun Does Shine,” which was also selected by Oprah Winfrey for her book club, marked a significant turning point in her career.
“I was in a lot of shame and fear that Oprah would find out and what would she think of me? But now Oprah found out and look what she thinks of me,” Hardin said.
Hardin’s story isn’t just one of downfall. It’s also about her courageous battle with addiction and how she turned her life around. In her book, she discusses how sharing her story keeps her accountable.
“I think if there’s anywhere in my life where I feel like I’m pretending, that’s like, that’s my that’s my canary in the coal mine,” she said. “That’s like the trigger warning. That’s the red flag that I need to make sure things are on track in my life,” she said.
Through “The Many Lives of Mama Love,” Hardin offers a look at her life’s lows and highs, she said her relationship with her sons is a testament to the power of unconditional love.
“I think the one thing I have done perfectly in my life is make them feel loved,” Hardin said. “Even when they were visiting me. Mother’s Day sitting in the backyard of a jail, I made them feel loved. I didn’t love them perfectly, because I didn’t love myself perfectly, but they felt loved. One of the things I’m most proud of is I feel like I, by burying, burying all of this, I feel like I’ve stopped this lineage of trauma in my family and I’ve turned and I’ve faced the past. And that is the greatest gift and legacy I’m gonna leave my children.”
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Sen. Thom Tillis says “the scope” of Helene damage in North Carolina “is more like Katrina”
As recovery missions and repairs continue in North Carolina more than a week after Hurricane Helene carved a path of devastation through the western part of the state, the state’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis called for more resources to bolster the relief effort and likened the damage to Hurricane Katrina’s mark on Louisiana in 2005.
“This is unlike anything that we’ve seen in this state,” Tillis told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday morning. “We need increased attention. We need to continue to increase the surge of federal resources.”
Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeast U.S. after making landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 as a powerful Category 4 storm. Helene brought heavy rain and catastrophic flooding to communities across multiple states, including Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, with North Carolina bearing the brunt of the destruction. Officials previously said hundreds of roads in western North Carolina were washed out and inaccessible after the storm, hampering rescue operations, and several highways were blocked by mudslides.
Tillis said Sunday that most roads in the region likely remained closed due to flooding and debris. Water, electricity and other essential services still have not been fully restored.
“The scope of this storm is more like Katrina,” he said. “It may look like a flood to the outside observer, but again, this is a landmass roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts, with damage distributed throughout. We have to get maximum resources on the ground immediately to finish rescue operations.”
Hurricane Katrina left more than 1,000 people dead after it slammed into Louisiana’s Gulf Coast in August 2005, flooding neighborhoods and destroying infrastructure in and around New Orleans as well as in parts of the surrounding region. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. in the last 50 years, and the costliest storm on record.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene is at least 229, CBS News has confirmed, with at least 116 of those deaths reported in North Carolina alone. Officials have said they expect the death toll to continue to rise as recovery efforts were ongoing, and a spokesperson for the police department in Asheville told CBS News Friday their officers were “actively working 75 cases of missing persons.”
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Transportation released $100 million in emergency funds for North Carolina to rebuild the roads and bridges damaged by the hurricane.
“We are providing this initial round of funding so there’s no delay getting roads repaired and reopened, and re-establishing critical routes,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris administration will be with North Carolina every step of the way, and today’s emergency funding to help get transportation networks back up and running safely will be followed by additional federal resources.”
President Biden previously announced that the federal government would cover “100%” of costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures in North Carolina for six months.
With North Carolina leaders working with a number of relief agencies to deal with the aftermath of the storm, Tillis urged federal officials to ramp up the resources being funneled into the state’s hardest-hit areas. The senator also addressed a surge in conspiracy theories and misinformation about the Biden Administration’s disaster response, which have been fueled by Republican political figures like former President Donald Trump.
Trump falsely claimed that Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the November presidential election, were diverting funds from Federal Emergency Management Agency that would support the relief effort in North Carolina toward initiatives for immigrants. He also said baselessly that the administration and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, were withholding funds because many communities that were hit hardest are predominantly Republican. Elon Musk has shared false claims about FEMA, too.
“Many of these observations are not even from people on the ground,” Tillis said of those claims. “I believe that we have to stay focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, clearing operations, and we don’t need any of these distractions on the ground. It’s at the expense of the hard-working first responders and people that are just trying to recover their lives.”
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