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    In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir
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    In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir
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    In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir
    Ebook368 pages5 hours

    In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir

    By Neil White

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    "A remarkable story of a young man's loss of everything he deemed important, and his ultimate discovery that redemption can be taught by society's most dreaded outcasts." —John Grisham

    "Hilarious, astonishing, and deeply moving." —John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

    The emotional, incredible true story of Neil White, a man who discovers the secret to happiness, leading a fulfilling life, and the importance of fatherhood in the most unlikely of places—the last leper colony in the continental United States. In the words of Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler (A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain), White is “a splendid writer,” and In the Sanctuary of Outcasts “a book that will endure.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 2, 2009
    ISBN9780061885075
    Author

    Neil White

    Born above a shoe shop in the mid-1960’s, Neil spent most of his childhood in Wakefield in West Yorkshire as his father pursued a career in the shoe trade. This took Neil to Bridlington in his teens, where he failed all his exams and discovered that doing nothing soon turns into long-term unemployment. Re-inventing himself, Neil returned to education in his 20’s, qualified as a solicitor when he was 30, and now spends his days in the courtroom and his evenings writing crime fiction.

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    Reviews for In the Sanctuary of Outcasts

    4/5

    186 ratings27 reviews

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    • 4/5
      An unexpectedly moving (and funny) memoir!

      When Neil White was sentenced to Federal Prison in the early 1990's for check kiting, the last place he certainly expected to be incarcerated was in a facility that also served as a community for victims of Hansen's Disease -- leprosy -- many of whom had been quarantined decades earlier and had few or no options for living anywhere else.

      White, who enters the place with understandable misgivings and a truckload of hubris, emerges over a year later with a deeply true sense of himself, and of what he must to do rebuild a life that he admittedly wrecked with greed. We are lucky enough to be introduced to a cast of characters that even the best writers of fiction would be hard put to credibly assemble.

      While Mr. White does lightly touch on the history of Carville, Louisiana and the medical and religious misunderstandings that led to wholesale quarantine of sufferers of Hansen's disease, he never delves deeply into these areas, and I would recommend John Tayman's masterful history, The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai for those interested in the subject.



    • 4/5
      Neil White tells the story of his fall from grace, how he went from being a successful magazine publisher to a criminal. Convicted of check fraud and sentenced to eighteen months in a federal prison, White leaves behind his wife, two young children, and a mountain of debt when he is incarcerated at Carville, Louisiana. He soon learns that this is no ordinary prison. It is actually a leper colony, part of which the Bureau of Prisons has taken over to house white collar criminals. He ends up befriending several of the patients, who prefer the term "Hansen’s Disease" instead of "Leprosy." As he serves his times and reflects on his crimes, he learns the stories of these patients and how they have lived their lives as outcasts. This is a great story about friendship and new beginnings, although the epilogue regrettably does not enlighten the reader about the author's activities in the 15 years since his release from prison.
    • 4/5
      I'm glad Neil White went to prison so he could write this book. As a young man White always wanted more. More prestige, more money, more flashy things. To maintain an image of success he started check kiting and eventually ended up in Federal prison for it. A resident of New Orleans, he was sent to Carville, La for an 18 month incarceration. He gound the prison at Carville wasn't the traditional lockup. Instead it was the former National Leprosarium. And 130 "lepers" still lived at the facility along with federal convicts. This memoir tells the story of White's experience with both. A story of jailhouse redemption like no other.
    • 5/5
      When an affluent man is sent to a minimum security prison for kiting checks, he does not know that the facility is also home to the last leper colony in the U.S. Initially, he is afraid of the leprosy patients, but during his incarceration, he becomes friends with them. There are also some colorful and well-known inmates. This is an enjoyable memoir capturing an interesting period of Louisiana history.
    • 4/5
      White does a terrific job of blending a story of his own time in federal prison with that of the other prisoners he gets to know but most importantly with the victims of leprosy who have called them same facility for years--some of them almost their entire lives. White, a journalist, writes in a conversational way and mixes in generous amounts of humor with stories that are both heartbreaking and uplifting.
    • 4/5
      What a cast of characters! True, but hard to believe. Author sentenced to serve time in a minimum security prison on same grounds as the only remaining leper colony in the US. The author uses the year to assess himself, past and present, and figures out his future. And all the inmates and patients inspire and move him in some way.
    • 4/5
      I found this memoir fascinating but not very rounded. The story of a man's incarceration in a prison that doubled as a home for those afflicted with leprosy was interesting in that I learned much about the disease, how those who suffered from it were treated, and how many misconceptions there are about leprosy. I would have liked to have seen more about how the author took what he learned during his imprisonment and made his post-incarceration life a better one. The book ended when his prison sentence did and other than a brief update, there was nothing to really fill in the fifteen year gap between his release and the book.
    • 4/5
      One of those good books that sends you on a search to learn more. Very interesting.
    • 3/5
      Memoirs are funny things; one's appreciation of the entire memoir hinges on how well-received the writer is. If one does not like the narrator, then chances are that one is not going to enjoy the memoir. I have fallen on both sides of this situation; I have read memoirs where I was disgusted by the narrator and thus could barely finish the memoir. Similarly, I have fallen in love with the narrator and then adored every word. In my experiences, one either likes the narrator or does not; there is very little middle ground.Then I read In the Sanctuary of Outcasts. At first, I was a bit disgusted with Mr. White. He showed no remorse for his actions. He comes across as ego-maniacal and considers himself better than everyone else. He refuses to consider that he is a bad guy. However, as he learns more about Carville and its inmates and patients, something unusual happens. Mr. White matures and feels remorse. He realizes that his experiences mean nothing in the face of what the leprosy patients have faced in their lifetimes. He goes from being rather unlikable to becoming someone who realizes his frailty and obstacles in life and refuses to ignore them. His growth is remarkable for a memoir.I suspect that anyone cannot change after a year spent living next to and working with leprosy patients. This history of Carville, its patients, and their individuals histories are poignant and fascinating. The background of leprosy patients, their treatment by society throughout history and even into present day is astonishing in how little we still know about Hansen's disease and upsetting that people can and still do treat others like that. Ella, Harry, Stan and Sarah - they come alive through Mr. White's words, which are a testament to their dignity and humanity in the face of their struggles. More importantly, Mr. White proves that true beauty is internal and eternal.In the Sanctuary of Outcasts is more than a memoir. In the end, it is a reminder that our troubles are insignificant to what others have faced. Through his incarceration, Mr. White recognizes the truth behind Ella's words - that while we cannot change who we are, we can change our circumstances and our approach to life. He shares with us the importance of taking time to enjoy life, of living simply, and of not bemoaning our choices and subsequent consequences of those choices. In the end, Mr. White offers us powerful life lessons that each and every one of us need to take to heart. Even with its dubious beginnings, I am grateful that I read In the Sanctuary of Outcasts for its history lessons, for its introduction to a world completely different from my own, and for its lessons in humanity.
    • 2/5
      I was waiting for this book to be sent to me from the early reviewer's list but it never came. On a trip to the local library I saw it in the new book section. I was intrigued by the premise, a prison/hospital for lepers. Neil White, a journalist and magazine publisher, in the pursuit of all that money could buy began to kite checks. The FBI became wise to his scheme and he was tried and sentenced to 18 months in a federal prison. The prison he would go to was located in Carville, Louisiana and it was already inhabited, shared, in fact by the last leper colony in the United States. Neil befriends not only the prisoners but also the patients who lived in the part of the building that housed the lepers. I expected a lot from this memoir, perhaps too much. When I read the blurbs on the back of the book I feel that I may be wrong, but while reading the book there was no question in my mind that Neil White simply did not know how to convey any of the life lessons that he claimed he took away with him. He tells the reader that the people who lived through his 18 months of imprisonment with him were singular individuals who had a great deal of effect on his life, but I was not convinced. I could understand how their individual stories and personalities could touch his heart in meaningful ways. It was clear that people like Ella Bounds, an 80 year old African American woman confined to her wheelchair by a double amputation due to leprosy contracted as a child, could not fail to impress him. However, I was not convinced that he was changed by his forced connection with the lepers at Carville. I understood his deep regret at being caught and letting down his family, who were forever affected by his actions. His writing often attempted to appeal to the readers sense of empathy, but while I felt it for the lepers, I didn't connect his interactions with any patient as a learning experience for him. I doubt that anybody could be untouched by an experience like that, but his writing did not convey that to me. I would have liked to see him have a few more meaningful relationships, but he mainly seemed to regret losing his family when he went to prison. I felt the book lacked any true insight into what the experience meant for Neil. It struck me that he did not seem to go beneath the surface enough with any of the relationships he formed, blaming it on prison rules. I was disappointed with the book for the most part and felt it promised more than it delivered.
    • 4/5
      In 1993 Neil White was convicted of bank fraud and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. To his surprise, he found himself assigned to a Louisiana facility, Carville, which served as both a prison and Leprosarium – a home for people with Hansen’s Disease. White’s memoir, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, is an account of the year he spent there. When I picked up this book, I expected an emotional and dramatic account of White’s life among lepers. What I found instead were thoughtful musings on his own life and how interactions with both the patients and other inmates there affected him and his outlook. Throughout the book there are references to the history of Carville, as well as patients’ reminiscences of their early days at the colony. One that stands out for me is Ella’s memory of the day her father brought her there as a child in 1926 and her quiet goodbye to her life as she had known it. The understatement of her story added to its poignancy. In the memoir White also includes descriptions of the crimes he committed, as well as his relationships with his two children, parents, and fellow inmates who ranged from CEO white-collar criminals to illiterate drug dealers. White's stay at Carville had a profound impact on him and his portrayal of that time is an interesting read.
    • 5/5
      Neil White has made a lot of mistakes in his life, some with serious consequences. Very serious consequences. Consequences like spending months in federal prison for kiting checks. While engaging in his financial acrobatics to keep his magazines going, Neil never really considered that what he was doing was wrong, even after being caught once and losing people’s money. He figured that if he could just juggle the money until there was enough to cover everything, nobody would get hurt and nobody would mind. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out like that. Neil was caught in his financial indiscretions, hurting his family, friends, and many investors in the process.When Neil was sentenced to 18 months in prison, he accepted his fate, although he never really seemed to consider that he was on the same level as the ‘criminals’. Because of his acceptance of his punishment, prison in and of itself didn’t seem to be a huge shock to him, what DID surprise him is that federal inmates were not the only ones housed at Carville penitentiary - Carville was also America’s last leprosarium (leper colony).As one of the inmates who seemed the most open to befriending and talking with the ‘patients’ (as those with leprosy or Hansen’s Disease were called), Neil learned quite a bit of history of leprosy in the United States and about the fascinating and sometimes horrifying circumstances that had brought people to the leprosarium at Carville. Originally, still in his journalism-oriented mindset, White planned to engage in some participatory journalism to write a sort of expose about the state of leprosy in America and the fact that federal inmates were being held in the same institution as a population of people with leprosy.An expose is not what White ended up writing, however. Instead, “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts” is his personal memoir of growth through his time at Carville. Okay, if I read the line “personal memoir of growth,” that would probably stop me from picking up a book, because those sorts of things usually turn out cheesy in my opinion. That is not “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts” at all. White was very open and straightforward about his thoughts, feelings, and attitudes as he described the events of his year or so in prison. The growth he experienced seemed very genuine and very real and he seemed to be honest about how he arrived at it, he was never flashy or melodramatic.This was a fantastic book. One might expect that a memoir of this nature would be more about the story than the writing, but as a former journalist Neil got everything right: the pacing, the storytelling, and the writing. In addition to White’s personal story and experience as a federal inmate, which was interesting in itself, I was fascinated to read about Carville as a leprosarium and about the lives of the patients there. I must admit that I’ve never given much (any?) thought sufferers of leprosy in American and definitely had my eyes opened by this book.This was a great read and one that I would definitely recommend.Buy this book from:
    • 4/5
      “For as long as my children could remember, I had ignored fences and boundaries and rules. I climbed buildings to get balls out of gutters. I jumped curbs to get closer to the entrance of football games. I talked clerks into giving us rooms at overbooked hotels. Nothing much had prevented me from getting what I wanted, and I made sure my children knew it. Now I stood at the edge of a knee-high fence, embarrassed to be so helpless.”Neil White, author of “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts”, was sent to federal prison for 18 months for fraud. All his life, he’d wanted to be impressive, wanted to be the best at something, wanted applause and others to be in awe of him. Outward appearances seemed to be all that mattered. His lifestyle got more and more grand…because he was kiting checks. Once convicted, he was sentenced to serve his time in Carville, Louisiana…a federal prison that was also the home of the last leper colony in mainland America.I was hooked by that, by the idea that such a place even existed and very interested to see how the inmate and patient population would mesh. Turns out though, I was far more interested in the long journey White takes…without leaving the prison grounds.In reading his book, it seems apparent that was he sent anywhere else, White might not have undergone the changes he needed to live life legally on the outside. For a man so concerned about appearance and success…he needed to be around people who had been shunned and locked away. He needed to see that without any of the material and superficial things that he valued so much; there was honest happiness and self-acceptance to be had.White enters the prison with so many misconceptions – mostly about himself and his actions. He tells his children he’s going to camp, he acts like the year he will spend there is just a temporary setback in his career, he decides to use the time to interview the inmates and patients, get the story on other people’s lives instead of looking back at his own. But FINALLY a devastating emotional blow (by which time I had almost written him off as hopeless), “…did what bankruptcy, public humiliation, and imprisonment had not done. I could no longer stomach my own lies and delusions. For the first time, I felt the full weight of my crimes…Finally, in a sanctuary for outcasts, I understood the truth. Surrounded by men and women who could not hide their disfigurement, I could see my own.”Though my interest was mainly in White, my heart breaks for the patients of Carville. Not only had they been treated like outcasts, taken from their homes, not allowed many basic human rights (like the right to raise their own children), but they were housed with convicts. Injustice was piled upon injustice.“In the late 1950’s, after medications were developed to control the spread of leprosy, the gates of Carville were opened. At that time, 297 patients lived at the leprosarium. One year later, 281 remained inside. Ella, Harry, and others, who were brought here involuntarily – sometimes in shackles – chose to stay, even after they had been set free. For them, freedom was more terrifying that imprisonment. The stigma of being labeled a “leper” had cut as deeply as any physical scar.”The lives White sees while in prison are exactly what he needs to finally examine his own. He learns that “Intimate, prolonged contact, it seemed, made everything commonplace. Beauty and disfigurement disappeared with familiarity. Beauty queens became ordinary; leprosy patients did, too.”In short, that it’s what is under one’s skin that matters. Such a simple lesson, yet so hard to learn for so many. But I finished this book sure that Neil White has learned it – if only because of the final acknowledgement he gives in this book:“To Judge Walter Gex for holding me accountable.”
    • 4/5
      Located on a drowsy bend of the Mississippi River in southern Louisiana, Carville is home to the National Hansen's Disease Museum. It was named for political personality James Carville's grandfather and was home to the Federal Medical Center, a minimum security facility for non-violent federal prisoners and inmates with chronic health problems. Carville, more importantly, was also home to the nation's only leprosarium, which in it's latter days - to both White's astonishment and my own - served as housing for leprosy patients and Federal inmates in the same building as well as an order of nuns within the grounds. In the Sanctuary of Outcasts is Neil White's memoir of the time he served as an inmate at the Federal Medical Center at Carville. Written as a series of chronological anecdotes, Sanctuary takes us through the circumstances that led to White's conviction for bank fraud, his sudden introduction to leprosy and his life as an inmate at Carville.For anyone who is astounded at the very idea of leprosy - or Hansen's disease, as it is now called -- being a malady of the modern era (current US Department of Health statistics estimate that there are 6,500 cases as of this writing), this book will give you some insight into a few patient's experiences as well as dispelling some common myths about the disease. One woman's story is especially touching. Ella Bounds was committed to Carville at the age of 12, delivered to the front gate by her father, never to see her family again. Ella, in her 80's at the time of White's incarceration, had spent the vast majority of her life in the institution. In the Sanctuary of Outcasts is not a scholarly study of Hansen's disease in America, although it gives patients stricken with the disease a very human face. Moreso this is the story of one man's growth -- a sort of mid-life "coming of age" tale -- and a window into one mans very unique experience. By turns it is funny, intriquing, irreverent, shocking, and profoundly moving. Sanctuary is highly readable and deeply satisfying.
    • 3/5
      This is a story of a normal man who intended success to be his. In attempting to maintain that success, he used deception in his business, but was caught. Sentenced to time in a minimum security facility -- which also was home to a small group of people suffering from leprosy -- the writer finds that their friendship caused him to reflect on his own circumstances.
    • 4/5
      This was a well written non fiction book about a unique situation. The author Neil White, was convicted of bank fraud-kiting checks- and sentence to 18 months in prison. He serves a year-with good behavior- at a unique prison in Louisiana, that houses non violent offenders, as well as Leprosy patients. The history of the institution named Carville ( as in James Carville's family) and the patients that occupy it was fascinating. The prisoners who are also housed there, were an interesting mix as well, from Jimmy Hoffa's lawyer to a body building medical expert. The author is rather pretentious when he arrives there and unfortunately remains that way for much of his sentence, but through the help of one of the leprosy patients named Ella, begins to see what is really important for him to focus on when he is released from prison. The story is a little sappy, and I am not sure I believe the author really changed his way but the book was still very good.
    • 4/5
      The book starts out a bit slow but eventually picks up. I love the transformation the author makes toward the end. I actually miss the people he introduces to us in the narrative after the book ends. Overall, I found this book to be interesting on a historical and personal level.
    • 5/5
      In the fall of 1990 I spent 2 months at Carville as a student in the foot clinic. My affection for the people of Carville and the Gillis W Long Hansen’s Disease Center cannot be measured! It is truly one of my most treasured life experiences!
      At the time I was at Carville, I knew there were federal inmates there. I occasionally saw 1 or 2 in the cafeteria. I’ll be honest, it was a bit disconcerting to me initially since I was living on site. It was fascinating to me to hear Neil’s perspectives from the prison side. It was like a walk down memory lane to hear his descriptions of the people and the walkways!
      I found it to be a well written memoir and a great story.
    • 4/5
      I have to admit now that I have read In the Sanctuary of Outcasts I can officially say I am bummed I didn't receive this as an Early Review back in 2009. This would have been one of my favorites. Not just one of my favorites, but one of my all-time favorites, for sure.Confessional: I sometimes skip the author's note. I'll admit it - I'm impatient to get to the heart of the story. afterwards. In this case, for some reason I read every word of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts. I started with the copyright page and I think that's what convinced me to spend time with every word White wanted to utter.Leprosarium. Never heard the word before. Who know there was a place on the Mississippi River called Carville, a place under one roof for Hansen's disease patients and prison inmates? Neil White certainly hadn't when he entered the community of Carville on May 3rd, 1993 as a convicted felon. He left behind a wife and two small children to serve eighteen months for check kiting. There is humor to White's arrival. His initial observations of Carville are as touching as they are naive. But, the longer he stays within the walls of Carville the more he understands the people around him. They leave a lasting impression and dare I say, change his life.
    • 5/5
      In the Sanctuary of Outcasts is a story about one man’s fall from grace and his journey back to humanity and humility. It is remarkably readable, often funny, occasionally heartbreaking, insightful, and informative. The characters White meets in prison and the people of character he encounters in the leprosarium force him to change his perspective and re-evaluate his priorities, and he leaves Carville prepared to become a different, better man.I was pleasantly surprised by how well written and touching In the Sanctuary of Outcasts was. A story like White’s has the potential to become trite and overly sentimental, but he successfully avoids those pitfalls and resists the temptation to self-aggrandize. This is a book about finding a way out of the shambles of a broken, seemingly hopeless life and a reminder that it is what we do, not how we are thought of, that really matters.Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog.
    • 4/5
      I have an interest in diseases, life in institutional settings (e.g. orphanages, TB sanatoria, boarding schools), and I am also interested in the workings of our correctional systems, so this was a great combination for me. Federal prisoners, including the author, are confined at Carville, where there are still a few Hansen's disease (leprosy) patients residing.
    • 4/5
      The author reflects on the years he spent incarcerated for bank fraud in a Louisiana prison that also doubled as a colony for leprosy patients and discusses events in his personal and professional life before and after his sentence. (from Library Thing)This was an interesting story about incarceration especially since it takes place in a leper colony. Although the leprosy patients and prisoners are kept separate, White has no difficulty getting to know several of the patients, against all the rules. Given that the prison and the leper colony are in the same location, it is easy to see how lepers have been treated over the years...hidden from society and treated as prisoners in many cases. very informative and easy-to-read.Haiku summary

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      On the surface, Neil White had it all: charming himself with a beauty queen wife, two adorable children, enviable material possessions, owning a successful magazine. But underneath the perfect, wealthy veneer, White was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. In fact, he was living well beyond his means and was loathe to change his habits so he started kiting checks, courting investors for infusions into the magazine, all while continuing to present an unruffled and untroubled facade to the outside world. But eventually he was caught, convicted of bank fraud, and sentenced to 18 months in a low security prison.The prison he was sent to was not just any prison though, it was the Federal Medical Center in Carville, Louisiana, an isolated federal prison that also functioned as our national leprosarium and housed some of the last leprosy patients in this country to be isolated and confined because of their disease. The 130 patients lived on one side and the several hundred inmates lived on the other. Their close proximity allowed for one of the most unique prison situations in the country. Patients and prisoners, an ancient order of nuns, health care workers, and prison guards and officials all lived, ate, slept, worshipped and worked cheek by jowl, if a bit uneasily, in this beautiful, serene looking setting.White was a superficial man, concerned with the appearance of things rather than what was right. He was more worried that people would know that his business was struggling than he was about asking people, including his mother, to pour their life savings into his crumbling enterprise. The first time that he was caught kiting checks, his public persona allowed him to bury the incident and relocate to another city where his misdeeds were unknown and where he would, without guilt, engage in exactly the same behaviour as previously. He seemed to believe that he was a shining star and as such was owed success. Getting caught a second time didn't change his entitlement attitude at all or his overwhelming concern for his image, personally or publically. And this same concern and belief that he was above everyone around him carried with him into prison. Initially horrified that he was going to come into close proximity with the patients (what if he was to contract Hansen's disease too?), he decided that his stay in prison would provide fodder for a book. And obviously it has, if not entirely the way he initially thought.As White put in his time at Carville, he had to start facing who he was under the skin, learning that appearances mean very little, a truth driven home in this place of refuge and sanctuary for the victims of such a disfiguring disease as Hansen's can be. He meets and becomes friends with an assortment of people from patients to other inmates and he learns from each them as he goes through his sentence. The patients are represented as wise and thoughtful, especially one elderly woman in particular, perhaps because of their long isolation from the greater population. The inmates are a more varied lot, ranging from diabolically genius to narrow-minded and prejudiced. White's focus is more on his personal journey and evolution than on anything else though so the reader follows along as he faces the disintegration of his marriage, his unabating ache to see and hold his children, and the dawning realization that the actions that landed him in prison were not in fact victimless as he had blithely convinced himself in his miasma of selfishness.The stories of the inmates and the patients were interesting but they weren't nearly as in depth as could have been hoped. And the history of Carville itself was very superficially handled. This is primarily White's story and ostensibly the story of his redemption and change from selfish and self-important to aware and grappling with his own weaknesses. It's a very readable book but as an inspirational memoir, it falls a bit short as there is no real indication of White's evolution into a better, less image conscious, more thoughtful himan being. Not quite as comprehensive about the place and the people who populated it in its final years of operation as billed, this is still a quick and interesting book and an inside look at all we can learn from those we first dismiss.

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    • 4/5
      When I was younger, I read Betty Martin's memoir Miracle at Carville, about life in a leprosy treatment facility in Louisiana (yes, that's the same family as politico James). I think I also read the sequel No One Must Ever Know. Betty Martin is a pseudonym; leprosy had such a stigma that patients used other names, and were often buried with aliases or numbers. Even the word leprosy has its own alternate name: Hansen's disease.In later years, Carville shared its site with a federal prison. Magazine publisher Neil White was convicted of white-collar crime and sent there in 1993. When I started reading this book about his incarceration, images of sleepy, old, Southern, dignified grounds and buildings that I'd conjured up while reading Martin's books came back. The prison part of his story wasn't especially compelling, but the interaction with the leprosy patients was. I was most grabbed by the story of Ella, an elderly patient who was dropped off at Carville as a child and never saw her family again. Leprosy had quite a stigma. Yet she tooled around in her antique wheelchair, always upbeat, wise and giving.After release, White managed to rebuild his life in Mississippi and published this book in 2009. I'm not sure I'd want to do business with him (ex-con has more of a stigma to me than leprosy), but I was intrigued by this glimpse into a vanishing world. Carville now houses a museum and camp for at-risk youth. The treatment center has been phased out and only a handful of patients remain.(Book was requested from LT Early Reviewers, but never arrived. I obtained a Nook copy.)

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    • 4/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book. although the writing may not be great, he did a great job with the subject matter and I learned some very interesting things about leprosy, how the people with the disease were treated and how it is still found in the USA. Very cool read!

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    • 4/5
      “Surely, healthy people—even inmates would not be imprisoned with lepers”Former publisher Neil White is convicted of check fraud, and sentenced to one year at Carville, a minimum security prison. It is only when he arrives that he discovers that Carville also houses Hansen Disease patients, or as they are commonly known—lepers. Mildly disgusted and reasonably terrified White serves his time amongst these “outcasts”. Determined to spin his legal setback to his favor, he approaches the situation as a reporter and complies information on patients, their disease and his fellow inmates. He also slowly recounts his life and crimes as he searches to learn from his experience and emerge a better person.White learns from criminals such as Jimmy Hoffa’s lawyer or a wise cracking car-jacker named Link (as in the missing…), and befriending the leprosy patients such as Ella who was abandoned at the home as a child and lived within its gates for almost 70 years. He compiles their stories for a modern look at those living with leprosy and those otherwise incarcerated.His story offers alarming factoids about leprosy such as “no one was certain how the disease was transmitted, no vaccine existed to prevent the spread, and no test was available to determine who was naturally immune and who was susceptible.” He also experiences eye opening revelations about his new place in society as a criminal. “I was an outcast right alongside the victims of leprosy.” This new perspective allows him to dwell on what he truly values, more than image or wealth and guides him in making difficult decisions about his future.White writes in a conversational style with a clear journalistic tone. He does make some excuses for his crime, and his insistence that he must be different from the other criminals read as arrogance. But his love for his children and his desire to redeem himself to those he injured was compelling enough to awkwardly endear readers. And his experience is wholly unique even if the lessons he gleams are generic. Anticipation of a climatic event or confirmation of a genuine transformation on White’s part is not satisfied. However, White does give leprosy a human face, and reminds us never to take the simple things for granted.

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    • 4/5
      A surprisingly compelling read about a man's redemption. An admitted fast lane addict learns valuable lessons about life from Ella, a legless woman who suffers from leprosy.