Lorene Cary's new novel Pride (Nan A. Talese/ Doubleday,
1998; Anchor 1999) is told in the voices of four friends-"subtle,
idiosyncratic characters...whose personalities seem utterly, and
affectingly, distinctive," according to The New York Times Book
Review. It also praises the book's ability to shift "between
the staccato directness of black slang and the more formal cadences
of standard English...."
The Price of A Child has been selected as the first
city-wide One Book, One Philadelphia choice. The novel traces one
woman's escape from slavery and brings alive Philadelphia's
Underground Railroad history. A New York Times reviewer
called the writer "a powerful storyteller, frankly sensual,
mortally funny, gifted with an ear for the pounce [of] real
speech," and praised the novel as "a generous, sardonic,
full-blooded work of fiction." (Knopf, 1995; Vintage 1996)
Cary's first book, published by Knopf in 1991, was Black
Ice, a memoir of her years first as a black female student, and
then teacher, at St. Paul's, an exclusive New England boarding
school. Arnold Rampersad has dubbed it "...probably the most
beautifully written and moving African-American autobiographical
narrative since Maya Angelou's celebrated I Know Why The Caged
Bird Sings." Black Ice was chosen as a Notable Book for
1992 by the American Library Association.
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, and Chestnut Hill College in
Philadelphia.
In 1998 Lorene Cary founded Art Sanctuary, a 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.
Currently a 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, freelanced for
such publications as Essence, American Visions,
Mirabella, and The Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday
Magazine, and served as Contributing Editor for Newsweek
in 1993.
In 2002, Cary received the Women's Way Agent of Change Award; in
2001 the Advocate Community Development Corporation's Award for
Urban Excellence; in 2000, a Philadelphia Historical Society
Founder's Medal for History in Culture; in 1999, the American Red
Cross Spectrum Rising Star Award for community service; and in
1995, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts Fellowship. 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, the
Rev. Robert C. Smith, and daughters Laura and Zoe.
"The Price of a Child is a book seared by a sense of mission ...
But there is nothing preachy about [Cary's] narrative style. She is
a powerful storyteller, frankly sensual, mortally funny, gifted
with an ear for the pounce and ragged inconsequentiality of real
speech and an eye for the shifts and subterfuges by which ordinary
people get by. With The Price of a Child, Lorene Cary has produced
a generous, sardonic, full-blooded work of fiction."
-- Fernanda Eberstadt, The New York Times Book Review
"Cary's exacting sensual description does more than lend
credibility to her portrait of the age. It imparts to her writing
an undercurrent of searching perception, and a fastidious element
of psychological complexity." -- David Barber, Boston Globe
"A profoundly moving, evocative work that puts a fully realized
human face on the issue of slavery and its consequences. Cary's
passionate, intelligent prose and her assured command of historical
events as they sweep across individual lives recall Mark Twain,
Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. The Price of a Child marks the
emergence of a powerful voice in American fiction."
-- Paula L. Woods, Philadelphia Inquirer
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