Mainline Mama A Memoir

<br> <br> <p>A powerful and wrenchingly intimate memoir about the formidable challenge of raising a family separated by prison walls and how we can fight back against a broken byzantine system.</p> <p>Keeonna and Jason met as young teens. Only fourteen, Keeonna had never had a boyfriend before, dreamed of attending Spelman to become an obstetrician, and thought she was "grown." Within a year she was pregnant, and Jason was in prison, convicted of a carjacking and sentenced to twenty-two years. Overnight Keeonna had become a "mainline mama," a parent facing the impossible task of raising a child--while still growing up herself--with an incarcerated partner.</p> <p>In this devastating and triumphant memoir, Keeonna recalls her harrowing journey as a Mainline Mama, from learning to overcome the exhausting difficulties of navigating the carceral system in the United States, to transforming herself into an advocate for other women like her--the predominantly Black and brown women left behind to pick up the pieces of their families and fractured lives.</p> <p>Keeonna speaks frankly about the depression and suicidal thoughts that threatened to defeat her, how she learned to rebuild her broken relationship with a mother that lost trust in her, and how time eased the shame, guilt, and stigma of being a young Black teen mom with a partner behind bars. She offers inspiration and solace, showing how to create moments of beauty, humanity, and love in a place designed to break spirits, such as picking the perfect wedding dress for a ceremony in a state prison visiting room.</p> <p>Mainline Mama is about creating self-love and community--crucial acts of radical resistance against a prison industrial complex that is designed to dehumanize and to separate and shut away incarcerated individuals and their loved ones from the world.</p>