Cary recounts days as student in campus talk

Reminiscing about her days as a student at the University, author Lorene Cary kept a crowd of over 100 students on the edge of their seats during her 90 minute speech in Meyerson Hall yesterday afternoon. Cary, a 1978 College alum, began by jovially recounting memories of rats in the trash chute of her DuBois College House hall and of her sometimes not-so-stellar academic career. "I remember taking calculus," Cary said. "I remember taking calculus again and again." Cary's memories then took a more serious turn as she recalled both falling in love and feeling "isolated and disconnected" from the University because of its large size. Cary said that these feelings of isolation led her to begin trying to find herself. She said she turned to community service programs for relief from her studies and her feelings of isolation. Cary said that her community service experience added more meaning to her life. "Through service you can find yourself," she said. Cary then read a short passage from her best-selling autobiography, Black Ice, which deals with her years as a young black woman attending St. Paul's Prep School, an elite New England boarding school. Following the reading, Cary fielded questions about her youth from the audience. "I had to stop trying to find out what I ought to feel and instead try to find out what I do feel," Cary said in response to a question on how she controlled her rage against racism on campus. Most audience members said they found the speech very interesting and that they now wanted to read Cary's book. Engineering senior Eric Hall said that Cary's lecture was very enlightening. "She made me comfortable, kind of like watching a Spike Lee movie," Hall said. "She came across as a true intellectual." College junior Stacey Kirkland, who is a 1989 graduate of St. Pauls Prep, said that she is unsure of how she feels about the book. "It is difficult to say where I stand with the book because I don't know where I stand with the school," Kirkland said. But English Professor Houston Baker said that Cary's book was "fresh" and "interesting." "Her book was a bright and shining star rising over a new day in American Literature," Baker said. Cary is currently working on a book tentatively titled, Fire and Light. The book is about the underground railroad system and the free black community in Philadelphia in the 1850's. "Instead of writing a western, I am writing an eastern," Cary said.

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