In the Sanctuary of Outcasts – Book Review

Neil White’s In the Sanctuary of Outcasts is a true story in every sense of the phrase. In the early 1990s, White spent a year as a federal prisoner at a facility in Carville, La., that housed both inmates and victims of Hansen’s disease, an ancient affliction more commonly known as leprosy. Almost 15 years later, his book detailing that time at Carville and the people he encountered there is a moving story about forgiveness, fatherhood and the realities of those afflicted with the disease.

For more than 100 years, Carville, a town along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, housed the country’s official leprosarium, where Americans who contracted leprosy were forcibly kept in quarantine. But by the time White arrived, fewer than 150 patients remained with the incurable but now treatable disease. White’s tales of those confined at Carville—both infected and convicted—are intertwined with his own stories about his children, his privileged former life as a magazine publisher and his business failure and conviction.

White’s crime—he was kiting checks—is the kind of white-collar offense it is easy to forget. Except he reminds the reader of it constantly. The book is as much a mea culpa as a story about the patients who lived at the Carville facility. Although White spent countless hours interviewing patients and inmates, he also spent a good block of time interviewing himself. He explores his crime’s affect on his young children, who are told daddy is at “camp,” and laments the stigma and embarrassment for his wife, family, friends and former investors.

While he learns more about his new neighbors, White’s tone matures with his own rehabilitation and self-discovery. He evolves from scared skepticism of the patients to lecturing against the word “leper” and the wrongs of confining the infected against their will. He overcomes the stigma and fear of leprosy by forming close relationships with the patients, and he finally plants his flag as a Hansen’s disease advocate. A portion of White’s profits from the book is being donated to Hansen’s disease organizations.

Ultimately, White’s story is a page-turner—a web of history, hubris and humility. The memoir conveys a message that even while incarcerated or infirm, not everything is lost.