The Second Life of Mirielle West

A Haunting Historical Novel Perfect for Book Clubs

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Pub Date Jul 27 2021 | Archive Date Oct 01 2021

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Description

The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she’s forcibly quarantined at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on little-known history, this timely book will strike a chord with readers of Fiona Davis, Tracey Lange, and Marie Benedict.

* A 2023 Silicon Valley Reads Selection *
* Reader's Digest Editor's Choice *


For Mirielle West, a 1920’s socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease.

At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate.

As a registered nurse, Amanda Skenandore’s medical background adds layers of detail and authenticity to the experiences of patients and medical professionals at Carville – the isolation, stigma, experimental treatments, and disparate community. A tale of repulsion, resilience, and the Roaring ‘20s, The Second Life of Mirielle West is also the story of a health crisis in America’s past, made all the more poignant by the author’s experiences during another, all-too-recent crisis. 

“Scrupulous in her research and practically clairvoyant in her choice of urgent subjects — from the Indigenous boarding schools of her first novel to the disease and quarantine of The Second Life of Mirielle West — historical novelist Amanda Skenandore has quietly become one of the valley’s finest authors.” – The Las Vegas Review Journal
The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she’s forcibly quarantined at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set...

Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781496726513
PRICE $17.95 (USD)
PAGES 304

Average rating from 66 members


Featured Reviews

Read if you: Want a riveting historical fiction story about Carville, the mainland's only hospital for those with leprosy (now called Hansen's Disease).

One of my favorite 2020 reads was Carville's Cure by Pam Fessler. (If you enjoyed The Second Life of Mirielle West and haven't read that--read it! It is fabulous--nonfiction at its best.) I'm also from Louisiana, so any Louisiana story immediately catches my eye.

This is moving, enraging, exciting--one of the best things I've read in 2021.

Librarians/booksellers: A must read for your historical fiction fans, especially those looking for women-centered stories and stories set in the United States.

Many thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

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