In 1798 France, in a Versailles hospital lies The Great Tarare, a dying man rumored to have done monstrous things in his attempts to sate an insatiable appetite—an appetite they say tortures him still.

Victor Chin's life is turned upside down at the tender age of 15. Diagnosed with leprosy, he's forced to leave the familiar confines of the Bronx - the only home he's known since emigrating from China - to quarantine alongside patients from all over the country at a federal institution. Between treatments he dreams of escape. But soon he finds a new sense of freedom far from home - one without the pull of obligations to his family. Here, in the company...