Leprosy, federal prison, check kiting, and magazine publishing, are part of this memoir. Neil White, Ole Miss. grad, sets out to establish two glossy regional magazines.Check kiting, keeps these ventures afloat for awhile, but he winds up at Carville, Louisiana, a federal prison and the last leprosy hospital in the United States. While serving an 18 month sentence, White explores the history of leprosy and his own life. Along the way, the reader meets fascinating characters, fellow inmates: a mob lawyer, a quack doctor, a drug dealer, and in the hospital, the leprosy patients , Ella, a mother figure, a blind husband and wife, and a Catholic priest who ministers to patients and prisoners. Themes of tension and distrust between the lepers and the prisoners, between White and his wife, and between White and his business connections are woven into an examination of leprosy in the United States.
