Retired educator Jan Lovell, a member of First Baptist Church, will review “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts,” the memoirs of magazine publisher Neil White.
The review will be given at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 16, at the fellowship hall of First Baptist, 6501 Hazel St. Door prizes and refreshments will be furnished. The public is invited, according to a news release.
Lovell is a graduate of Rison High School. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in vocational education from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and a master’s degree in adult education at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, according to the release.
Lovell and her husband, Dale Lovell, have been married for 50 years. They are the parents of two married daughters and the grandparents of five grandchildren.
She taught 11 years at Southeast Arkansas College and two years at the women’s unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Since retiring in 2015, Lovell has visited several countries where her daughter and family lived. She has been to Germany, Spain, France, Belgium and Italy.
An active member of First Baptist, she also teaches a Sunday School class at Trinity Village, volunteers for the Upward Basketball games with her husband and serves in the prayer room, according to the news release.
The book Lovell will review, “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts,” tells about the author, Neil White, who following conviction for bank fraud and check kiting, spent a year in the isolated 100-year-old minimum security prison at Carville, La., which was housed in the last leper colony in mainland America, according to the news release.
“His fascinating memoir reflects on the sizable group of lepers living alongside the prisoners, social outcasts among the motley crew of drugs, mob types and killers. White introduces the reader to an excellent supporting cast in his imprisonment: Father Reynolds, the peerless monk; Mr. Flowers, the no nonsense case manager; Anne, the sorrowful mother with leprosy whose baby was taken from her arms; and Ella, his favorite — the Earth Mother with wisdom to spare from her nearly 70 years spent among the inmates,” according to the release.
“Brisk, ironic, and perceptive, White’s introspective memoir put a magnifying glass to a flawed life, revealing that all life is to be savored and respected,” according to the release.