History Book Festival to host online talk with Pam Fessler Sept. 3

NPR reporter Pam Fessler will join a live online discussion of her first book, “Carville’s Cure: Leprosy, Stigma, and the Fight for Justice,” at 5 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 3, presented by the History Book Festival.

The book takes readers to an old sugar plantation in Louisiana, called Carville by locals, that became the site of one of the only leprosy colonies in the continental United States.

Generations of afflicted Americans were isolated there, often against their will and until their deaths. Amid widespread public anxiety about foreign contamination and contagion, patients were deprived of basic rights and shunned by those outside. Patients, nurses, doctors, and researchers at Carville struggled for over a century to eradicate Hansen’s disease, the modern name for leprosy.

Fessler profiles several patients, including her husband’s grandfather, and New Orleans debutante Betty Parker, who fell in love with a fellow patient and ran away with him.

Fessler is a national correspondent with NPR News, where she covers poverty, philanthropy and voting. This book was written after she discovered her family’s connection to Carville.

Interviewing Fessler during the event will be Steve Drummond, executive producer of Code Switch, an NPR podcast about race, and of NPR’s education reporting project, NPR Ed.

This Zoom event is free but registration is required. To register, go to historybookfestival.org and click on 2020 Events. 

Biblion in Lewes and Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach carry copies of “Carville’s Cure” with signed archival bookplates. The festival encourages readers to support local independent bookstores. Copies also may be borrowed from the Lewes Public Library. To arrange for curbside pickup from the library, call 302-645-2733 or email lewes.library@gmail.com.