Summary

The memoir opens with an Author's Note in which Neil White explained the role of Carville in the 1990s as a leprosarium, and that there were about 130 people with leprosy living there, “the very last people in the continental United States confined because of the disease” (1).

Part I is titled “My First Day; May 3, 1993.” The photo following that is of a row of oak trees that grew between Carville and the levee of the Mississippi River. Chapter 1 opens with the words “Daddy is going to camp” (3), which is what Neil told his children, Little Neil and Maggie at the advice of a psychologist. His wife, Linda, dropped him at the prison gate. He noticed there were no bars on the windows. When a man wavedm Neil saw the man had no fingers. He asked the guard who said Neil would “find out” about...