On Tour

John Tayman, the author of a new non-fiction book about the Molokai colony where people affected with leprosy were exiled for several decades, is a guest-blogger this week at Powells.com. In today’s post, he talks about his book tour experience, which has so far involved gossip-loving media escorts and radio interviews where callers ask things like:

Caller #1: “John, what do you know about the military’s plan to imprison the mentally ill in a million-acre gulag in Alaska?”

Me: “Um, nothing.”

Caller #1: “Well look into it. Could be a good next book.”

Caller #2: “Mr. Tayman, this story about that colony on Hawaii sounds interesting. Have you heard that the government is keeping a cure for leprosy secret, so as to kill us all off with the disease if it decides to?”

Me: “Actually, a cure was discovered in the 1940s, and is in wide use.”

Caller #2: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes.”

Caller #3: “Mr. Tayman, you’ve been talking about diseases and quarantines and such, and I wanted to ask if you knew that SARS was caused by eating bats.”

Me: “No, I had not heard that. Thanks for letting me know.”

Caller #3: “No problem. I’ll send you some literature on it.”

You can read the rest of Tayman’s post here, and you can find out more about The Colony here.