Lorene Cary was graduated from St. Paul’s School in 1974 and received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. She won a Thouron Fellowship for British-U.S. student exchange and studied at Sussex University. She has received Doctorates in Humane Letters from Colby College in Maine, Keene State College in New Hampshire, Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., and Arcadia University in Glenside, Pa.

In 1998 Lorene Cary founded Art Sanctuary, a unique non-profit lecture and performance series that brings black thinkers and artists to speak and perform at the Church of the Advocate, a National Historic Landmark Building in North Philadelphia; a diverse audience of 10,000 participates each year.

Currently a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a 1998 recipient of the Provost’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, Cary has lectured throughout the U.S. She began writing as an apprentice at Time in 1980, then worked as an Associate Editor at TV Guide, served as Contributing Editor for Newsweek in 1993 and freelanced for such publications as Essence, O Magazine, and Mirabella .

In 2003, Cary received the Philadelphia Award, a Philadelphia Historical Society Founder’s Medal for History in Culture; in 1999. She’s received writing fellowships from Pew Fellowship in the Arts Fellowship and the Leeway Foundation and residencies at Yaddo and Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy. She serves on the usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary and the Union Benevolent Association board. Cary is a member of PEN and the Author’s Guild. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Robert C. Smith, and daughters Laura and Zoë.

Philadelphia Mayor Nutter on Oct 10th, 2011 named Lorene Cary to the five-member governing body of the Philadelphia School District - a group dogged by controversy in recent months for backroom deals and a $629 million budget gap. (Read more).

 

If Sons Then Heirs
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Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Atria (April 19, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 145161022X
ISBN-13: 978-1451610222

The critically acclaimed author of Black Ice, Pride, and The Price of a Child offers this deeply moving story of a family’s challenge to reunite, understand the truth about its past, and secure its legacy.

If Sons, Then Heirs sheds light on a uniquely American, largely untold story of African American land ownership, the outmigration from the South, racial violence, and the consequences of past decisions on present realities.

After World War II, Needham family members migrated north to Philadelphia from South Carolina, leaving behind the tragic injustice surrounding the violent death of their patriarch, King. His devoted widow, Selma, remains on the old home place. Over the years, she raises King’s children, including his great-grandson, Rayne, on whom falls the responsibility to bring the family together to save the family land and mend the rift between him and his mother.

Rayne and the other vividly drawn characters face challenges big and small that mirror the experiences of families everywhere. But in the masterful storytelling of Lorene Cary, so distinct and unique are their voices that they will live in the minds of readers long after the last page is read. If Sons, Then Heirs is a tour de force that explores the power of family secrets, bonds, and love. This gripping novel is certain to be on the must-read lists of all who enjoy brilliantly rendered stories of family, love, and American history.

 

Free! Great Escapes from Slavery on the Underground Railroad
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Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 86 pages
Publisher: Third World Press (February 1, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0883782685
ISBN-13: 978-0883782682
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.3 inches

Stories based upon actual incidents of Black people escaping from chattel slavery. Lorene Cary adapted these tales from narratives and records that were first told by William Still who was one of the key organizers of the underground railroad. The stories are brought to life by the craft of Ms. Cary. 

 

Price of a Child
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Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Vintage (June 11, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679744673
ISBN-13: 978-0679744672
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches

An intimate, gripping novel of the antebellum Underground Railroad, based on the true story of a valiant Philadelphia freedwoman. This is the first novel we have had from the author of Black Ice, the stunning memoir of a black student's experience at a New England prep school in the 1970s.

 

Pride
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Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Anchor; First Edition edition (January 19, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385481837
ISBN-13: 978-0385481830
ASIN: 0385481837
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches

Pride weaves together the intriguing lives of four middle-class black women in their 30s, best friends and soul mates since high school. Throughout the dramas of life--illnesses, divorce, death, and infidelities--the women struggle to keep the essence of their friendship alive. Although the plot is not revolutionary, author Lorene Cary creates remarkably believable and intricate characterizations. Roz is the respectable politician's wife, struggling with breast cancer, only to be betrayed by her husband and girlfriend. Tam lacks commitment in her life, flunking in her career and involving herself with a string of men; she must change her ways or lose her friends. Arneatha is the nucleus of the group, the peacemaker who is confronted with a romance which could ruin the stability of the group. Finally, Audrey is the most tragic of the four, an alcoholic who relies on her friends to save her. Like the dramatic scenarios that quickly accumulate in the novel, the book's language is fast-paced and energetic. Pride has a theatrical quality to it: each woman narrates her own scenes, offering a fresh new way of looking at events. The plot does not dull for a moment, and readers looking for a fast, entertaining read and characters of real depth won't be disappointed.

Four women, lifelong friends, are turning 40--and what a year it is.

Roz, the perfectly controlled (and controlling) politician's wife, is trying to keep her family together as she recovers from breast cancer and her husband runs for the biggest election of his career. Though he has strayed from her in the past, she has always been there for him--but all that is in jeopardy now that she has learned he has been sleeping with one of her three best friends.

Tam has been avoiding commitment all her life, both in an academic career that shows no sign of becoming permanent, and in her sexually combustive affairs with men. But she's ready to make some radical departures--including trying to return the interest of a sexy hunk who has more than just looks.

Ever since her husband's early death, Arneatha has immersed herself in her work as an Episcopal priest who runs a school and several community programs. But something is turning cold and brittle inside her, and for the first time in her life she questions her faith. Her last shreds of certainty are stripped from her when she is unexpectedly thrust into the role of mother--and finds herself falling in passionate, school-girlish love with a handsome African man.

Finally there is Audrey, whose climb back from the depths of alcoholism nearly costs her her life, but brings renewal to the friends' commitment to each other.

Vibrant, funny, heartwrenching, and real, Pride is an unforgettable novel.

 

Black Ice
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Paperback: 237 pages
Publisher: Vintage; First Vintage edition (February 4, 1992)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679737456
ISBN-13: 978-0679737452
Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches

In 1972 Lorene Cary, a bright, ambitious black teenager from Philadelphia, was transplanted into the formerly all-white, all-male environs of the elite St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, where she became a scholarship student in a "boot camp" for future American leaders.  Like any good student, she was determined to succeed.  But Cary was also determined to succeed without selling out.  This wonderfully frank and perceptive memoir describes the perils and ambiguities of that double role, in which failing calculus and winning a student election could both be interpreted as betrayals of one's skin.  Black Ice is also a universally recognizable document of a woman's adolescence; it is, as Houston Baker says, "a journey into selfhood that resonates with sober reflection, intellignet passion, and joyous love."

 

Related Links

Official Website
http://www.lorenecary.org/