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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

BIO

Keeonna Harris is a writer, storyteller, mother of five, prison abolitionist, activist, and an academic gangsta.  She was an inaugural PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow in 2018-2019.  She received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University.  Her forthcoming debut memoir, Mainline Mama draws from her experiences as a Black woman, teen mother, and twenty years of raising children with an incarcerated person. This work interrogates mass incarceration from the perspective of a “mainline mama”-- someone who navigates the borderlands of the prison and the free world.  In Mainline Mama, Keeonna reflects on mothering and community building as acts of radical defiance against carceral institutions designed to dehumanize.  

Keeonna has taught classes on mothering and research methods, and writing workshops for Tinhouse.  Keeonna was a Tin House Debut Writer Summer Resident in 2021.  In 2023 she will be a a Baldwin for the Arts Resident, Edith Wharton Resident, and Hedgebrook Resident.

REVIEWS

“Mainline Mama is a necessary memoir that is as tough as it is tender and as raw as it is refined. Keeonna Harris has written an abolitionist classic.” -- Myriam Gurba, author of Creep: Accusations and Confessions

“Mainline Mama is love letter to the women whose lives collide with our country's sprawling prison system. Keeonna Harris's memoir about her years raising a child with an incarcerated partner shows how a well-seasoned spaghetti noodle can taste of devotion, and a state-approved kiss can be an act of resistance. She and the other 'mainline mamas' care not only for the men inside, but for each other. Harris shows how that care sustains her on her long journey through the carceral system, and finally, how it helps her find her way home.” -- Lisa Riordan Seville, reporter, filmmaker and senior producer on the film team at Pro Publica

In Mainline Mama Keeonna Harris tells a frank, revealing and sometimes heartbreaking story of love in its many forms. Harris’ growth from a very young mother navigating a hostile prison system that holds her kids’ father, to a woman with the confidence to live life on her own terms, inspires. Mainline Mama offers a poignant portrayal of the power of family, against all odds, even as Harris evokes a difficult and beautiful discovery of who she is and what she wants. Keeonna Harris shares an unforgettable story of how love binds and shapes who we become, no matter the circumstances.  -- Piper Kerman, Author of Orange is the New Black

[H]  Amistad Press  /  February 11, 2025

0.81" H x 9.04" L x 6.26" W (0.8 lbs) 224 pages