The Leper is a book for our times. Heartbreaking, revealing, apocalyptic. And John Eric Severson is the kind of hero we just don't see in literature anymore, one both very human but undaunted by his humanity. As a Marine Corps captain during the First World War, he is lost in the forests of Germany and unknowingly leads his bedraggled men into a leper colony. Five years later in America's heartland, he is an idealistic schoolteacher in a tough, working-class neighborhood, where earning a high school diploma is something most of his students can only dream about. Severson finds happiness and love until the fateful day he is diagnosed with leprosy and literally chased from the school. Stalked by the ghost of his past, Severson begins an odyssey that takes him down the Mississippi River into the heart of darkness. Hunted by the KKK he flees deep into the bayou and ultimately across the ocean, where he sails into living legend.