Lulu Goes to College

In the fall of 1961 — before the sixties became The Sixties — eighteen-year-old Lulu Delaney of Meduxnekeag, Maine, packs up her two baby blue plastic suitcases and takes the bus south to Lovejoy, the private, coeducational Maine college to which she’s won a scholarship. Eager to read and discuss the great books and to have her first real boyfriend, she’s also wary of losing her Catholic faith. In 2015, graduates of the class of 1965 celebrate their 50th reunions. Much of their college life — in loco parentis, curfews, panty raids, and formal Sunday dinners — is no more. Nor do New Criticism and Great Thinkers of the Western World still anchor the curriculum. For older readers, Lulu Goes to College is a mirror to times past and, for younger readers, a window.