The Month in Books: Damaged Black Ice

Black ice is, in Lorene Cary's words, "the smoothest naturally occurring ice there is." This rare formation--years often pass without its occurrence--allows a view deep into the solid water, without the reflection and refraction of common ice.

Black ice holds special significance for the students of St. Paul's, the New England prep school which saw the beginnings of ice hockey in America. The glassy ice provides an ideal playing surface, and as a result its infrequent appearance is celebrated with an impromptu school holiday.

One of the first black women to enter St. Paul's after the school adopted coeducation in 1970, Cary adapted the traditional school symbol for her own purposes. As she says in her autobiography of the same name, the phenomenon of black ice came to represent for her the infrequent but enduring promise of a harmonious world.

Cary entered St. Paul's as a junior in the fall of 1972. After graduating from the school two years later, Cary received both a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. However, she returned to the prep school as an English teacher for the 1982 school year. Elected as a Trustee of the Concord, N.H. institution in 1984, Cary served on the school's governing board for four years.

In Black Ice, Cary allows the reader to examine the events that shaped her life during her time at prep school with sharpness and clarity. Openly displaying her deepest motives, thoughts and feelings, she presents an honest and intriguing account of her unique experiences.

The narrative is direct, and Cary's initial two years at the School serve as the story's framework. But Cary's book is unabashedly about herself. As she says, "St. Paul's is the setting. It's the place, not the main character." Her return to the school does not directly illuminate the nature of St. Paul's. Instead, Cary highlights her late acceptance of her painful, and previously unacknowledged, rite of passage.

In addition to facing typical prep school traumas--the novelty of being away from home, the added workload--Cary faced the additional pressure of being Black in a vastly white environment.

As Cary says, "If we could succeed here--earn high marks, respect, awards; learn these people, study them, be in their world but not of it--we would fulfill the prayers of our ancestors... we were there to turn [St. Paul's] out."

Cary did her best, alternately conforming to and rebelling against the century-old traditions of the school. She was elected vice president of her senior class and excelled in English. But Cary also tried marijuana for the first time the night before an exam. And she actively avoided blending into the "alien" white culture--Cary "took the offensive and bore my gifts proudly" in conversations about race.

Cary acquired a fiery nature from her mother, whose sickness during Cary's senior year sharpened her love for both parents and crystallized her fears about the changing relationship with them. Although Cary discusses her relatives with difficulty, her time in Concord obviously changed her familial role.

"I felt as if I were fighting for a new position in the family," Cary says. She felt acutely the lack of any common "history" with her schoolmates. As a result Cary "took it as divine justice that now I felt as if I no longer belonged anywhere."

Only upon her return to St. Paul's as a teacher and trustee did Cary realize that she could create a distinct identity. With the detachment of authority, Cary watched Black students face the same dilemmas which she had encountered. Uniting the lessons she learned as a teacher and the student experiences she finally digested as a trustee, Cary arrived at an inner calmness.

"The adolescent I had been peeked out at me from behind the birches and glared from the shadows of the darkened room. I had left her alone in New Hampshire, hoping to forget her. Instead, she had called me back. She demanded compassion, forgiveness, reunification. When I finished my year at St. Paul's, I brought the adolescent along."