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Martin's Must Reads: 'The Second Life of Mirielle West'

In 1894 a Leper Home was opened in Carville, Louisiana. In 1921, the United States Public Health Service took control of the site and it became the national leprosarium. People from all over the country who were diagnosed with leprosy, or Hansen’s Disease, were forced to quarantine there and many never left.

I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and that’s the setting for Amanda Skenandore’s novel The Second Life of Mirielle West. As the story begins, Mirielle is at her doctor having some suspicious spots checked. Two days later she finds herself traveling in a boxcar from California to Louisiana to live at Carville’s leprosarium. She is horrified to leave her actor husband, two children and rich lifestyle to live amongst those of whom she considers to be the lower classes. She needs twelve monthly negative blood tests before she can go home. First she is in denial of the disease, then reaches acceptance and hopes that her quarantine will only last a year.

In order to pass the time, she helps out in the clinics and slowly befriends the other residents, including Frank, who’s lost most of his fingers to the disease and ten year old Jean, who has been abandoned at Carville by her father. The author says, “All the residents take new names to spare their families the shame and ostracism that accompanied the disease. They underwent painful and experimental treatments in the hopes of someday rejoining society and their families. All this for a disease that is only feebly contagious.”

If you’re looking for a story about those who find a way to make a home when their lives are irretrievably changed, then you must read The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore.

Betty Martin was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a Lutheran pastor and his organist wife. Betty’s love of books was inspired by her father who read to all four children each night.
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