Carr, Lucien, 1925-2005

Lucien Carr was born in New York City in 1925, but spent most of his childhood in St. Louis, Missouri. It was in St. Louis that he first met Washington University instructor David Kammerer and Kammerer's childhood friend William S. Burroughs.

After graduating from Andover Academy, Carr briefly enrolled in Bowdoin College, but soon transferred to the University of Chicago, where he stayed for two semesters until an apparent suicide attempt caused him to be briefly institutionalized. His mother, living in New York at the time, convinced Carr to transfer to Columbia University. At Columbia, Carr, a brilliant student, befriended his Columbia dormmate Allen Ginsberg and recent graduate, Jack Kerouac. He introduced Ginsberg and Kerouac to one another and to William Burroughs, who, along with Kammerer, had moved to New York in Carr's wake. The intelligent and charismatic Carr quickly became the ringleader of the group of friends-- introducing them to the sensualist poetry of Rimbaud and encouraging their exploration of Greenwich Village clubs.

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