The premise of this book is so powerful and adds to the desperately needed narratives of everyday folks having to navigate the criminal justice system. Keeona Harris begins this book on her wedding day, trying to coordinate multiple family members coming to visiting hours as she weds her fiance, a current inmate. There’s a directness in Harris’s prose that will appeal to lots of readers. And when the narrative is in a specific moment, it’s immersive. However, as the book progresses, the exposition gets repetitive, which made it hard for me to stay engaged.

This book reminded me why I tend to avoid memoirs. I always struggle with rating them because they’re deeply personal — how do you critique someone’s lived experience?

My biggest issue with Mainline Mama is that while it’s a personal reflection on the author’s life and her connection to the prison system, it’s also attempts to shed light on the many obstacles faced by incarcerated individuals and their families. Because of that, I was hoping for more facts, statistics, and historical context to dive even deeper into this much needed discussion.

The lack of structure also made it difficult to stay engaged. The book jumps between past and present without a clear storyline, almost as if the author was writing as memories surfaced. I think with stronger editing and more external research, this memoir could have been much more impactful.

That being said, I still think this is an important read for those interested in understanding the emotional toll of incarceration on families, but it left me wanting more depth and clarity.

Thank you to NetGalley & Amistad for this egalley.

Keeonna Harris brings light to the prison system and the toll it takes on the incarcerated prisoners family and friends. This memoir follows how the love of Keeonna’s life being incarcerated took a toll on not only his life but hers as well. It also shows how isolating and difficult the prison system is to deal with. An important read for sure.

It did get a bit repetitive and as a result I DNF'd this book at 35%

At first I thought I was reading a novel. When I realized that this was someone's life story, I was even more impressed both by the writing and the story itself. I can't remember reading anything quite like this. It speaks to the kind of bonds that develop from being caught in a certain situation. I can't help but think that the author just managed to do everything so well. She has the ability to figure out what is needed and the perseverance to achieve it, all while starting out with much against her. Her path was one that would cause most women to give up. So this is a good story to tell for inspiration. Harris comes across as a strong woman, but one who understands her own mistakes and knows how to pivot. Where did her strength come from? The book itself is rough in spots and sometimes jumps unexpectedly, but it certainly draws the reader in.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this. I hope it is widely read! Five stars for a unique read!

Keonna Harris drives home precisely how punishing and dehumanizing incarceration is not only for imprisoned people, but for the family, friends, and wider community of people connected to them. She lays out with heart and intelligence the hideous catch 22 the state puts prisoners in – visitation is designated as a privilege not a right, but its potential denial is also weaponized against them.

Keonna also does a great job showing how the entire system is designed to be as tedious and cruel as possible. The clear intention is to break down family bonds and external support. The time, energy, and financial resources necessary to stay in contact with loved ones is nearly insurmountable.
But Keonna also provides a powerful message about what it means to show for the people we love, to not allow the prison industrial complex to determine who we love or how we grow our families. Mainline Mama is a tribute to the creative and steadfast women on the outside creating support networks and community in response to the brutality of carceral state violence.

In my efforts to read more non-fiction I came across this memoir.
This book is about reflection, family, love circumstance, but mostly about surviving the system. I don’t have a personal experience with the prison system, but I know folks that do. Even if you don’t personally know anyone that’s been affected by the prison system this book will truly touch your heart in unexpected ways.
This book is about forming lasting friendships in ways that help cope and deal with the complexities of the prison system and maintaining relationships with loved ones behind bars. A system that is definitely designed to tear you down. It answers the question of what and who “ home” can really represent. Final message of resilience and achieving the things you planned out for your life even with detours you can still get those things in a very different way and end up in a happy place with more than you thought possible.

Keeonna Harris's Mainline Mama is a powerful and intimate memoir that delves into the challenges of raising a family while navigating the complexities of the U.S. prison system. Meeting her partner, Jason, at fourteen, Harris soon found herself pregnant as Jason faced a 22-year prison sentence. Her narrative offers a candid exploration of the emotional and systemic hurdles she encountered, shedding light on the often-overlooked experiences of women supporting incarcerated loved ones. Harris's story is a testament to resilience, love, and the fight against a dehumanizing system. This memoir is essential reading for those seeking to understand the profound impact of incarceration on families and the strength required to endure it.

3.5 stars
I found the book interesting enough - it definitely gave me a different perspective of growing up in the city in gang neighborhoods. It’s also hard to decipher my frustration of her choices vs. the writing/story of the book.
I wish there was less of the middle portion of the book about working around another prison (which was essentially the same) and more of her doctoral work.

Ok so I went into this ready to be mad… I felt like (in the beginning anyways) that Keeonna was glorifying being a ride or die for her incarcerated man. I’m so glad I stuck it out because while that is how she started out due to being young, she turned her negative into a positive for sure. I felt like I watched her grow up throughout this book and she was extremely vulnerable with us.

I saw this book on Kiese Laymon’s IG story and when Kiese says to read the book, you read the book.

As a teenager, Keeonna’s first love is arrested and sentenced to 20+ years in prison. She begins to navigate the prison system and along the way forges lifetime friendships and builds herself a community among amazing women. These women, also known as Mainline Mamas, have perfected the ins and outs of the prison visitation system.

Keeonna hooked me as a reader from the start. She’s a natural born storyteller and her sentences continuously flow one into the other seamlessly. It was hard for me to reach a stopping point at night because I was so invested. She weaves her story between moments of her life before, during, and after her partner’s incarceration. It creates a real and intimate portrait of her journey and her character.

Publication date: 2/11/25

Thanks to NetGalley and Amistad Books for access to an advanced copy.

Harris had dreams: grow up, go to Spelman, meet and marry a Morehouse man, become an OB/GYN. And then maybe think about babies. But at fourteen, Harris met Jason, her first boyfriend and first love. At fifteen, she had a baby, which tipped her life sideways. And again when she was fifteen, Jason was sentenced to 22 years in prison, changing the course of both of their lives for good.

"Since my family's expectations had changed, I knew I had to set new expectations for myself. Nobody was talking about me going to college anymore; I was rerouted into what my family thought was a good, stable job: working customer service for a phone company. [...] Now that I had a baby I wasn't supposed to shoot for the stars; I was kept grounded to set up a good foundation." (loc. 1504*)

"Mainline Mama" chronicles Harris's experience of two decades of a relationship that could never be on her own terms. From asking her grandmother to take her to the prison to visit—because she was too young to visit on her own, and her mother didn't approve of the relationship—to becoming a veteran visitor who knew the ins and outs and workarounds to planning her wedding in a prison, Harris had to grow up *fast*, and she had to learn a whole host of skills and information that most of us will never use.

Of all the dreams for my wedding, watching my whole family go through a security checkpoint was never one of them. (loc. 197)

From a writing perspective, this is a three-star book. It's solid and extremely readable, but it can get a bit repetitive and occasionally a bit soap-box-y (though—let's be clear—it's not unwarranted). But from a content perspective, this is five stars all the way. Harris's voice and story are so underrepresented. This is *her* story, not Jason's, though of course the two are entwined.

"Jason was a twenty-one-year-old boy who couldn't cry in public, and the only way we could talk was over the phone, in front of everybody in prison. A gang member in prison couldn't be on the phone whining and crying. Couldn't be sad, so he got mad. All the sadness turned into anger, and sometimes it was directed at me. We went through things we couldn't or didn't know how to talk to each other about." (loc. 1091)

As Harris visited and wrote to Jason, learning the rules of one prison after another—sometimes driving seven hours for a visit, or sleeping in her car overnight—she saw, and experienced firsthand, how the prison system impacted not only those who were incarcerated but also loved ones. She was not in prison, but she was limited in when she could call and when she could visit; limited in what she could wear and what she could bring; limited in how long she could hug her boyfriend (and later husband) when she visited. And: Because they were growing up in parallel trajectories, able to see each other but not on their own terms and never within their individual day-to-day lives, they were not able to understand what each other's realities really looked like.

Without spoiling anything, I'll say that this book in its current form is probably only possible because of the way things panned out, and also because Harris is writing from decades of experience rather than a year or two. It's worth noting that this isn't a book about why Jason went to prison or whether or not his punishment was reasonable; it's a story about what happens to the people left on the outside. It is a complicated, messy story, but it is well worth it for her perseverance, her insights on what life is like for those impacted by the prison system but not incarcerated themselves, and for her clear-eyed view of how long and how far the ripples caused by incarceration can extend.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Interesting book. Don’t miss.
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.