Miriam Cohen – författare

Julia Lathrop was a social servant, government activist, and social scientist who expanded notions of women''s proper roles in public life during the early 1900s. Appointed as chief of the U.S. Children''s Bureau, created in 1912 to promote child welfare, she was the first woman to head a United States federal agency. Throughout her life, Lathrop challenged the social norms of the time and became instrumental in shaping Progressive reform. She began her career at Hull House in Chicago, the nation''s most famous social settlement, where she worked to improve public and private welfare for poor people, helped establish America''s first juvenile court, and pushed for immigrant rights. Lathrop was also co-founder of one of America''s first schools of social work. Later in life she became a leader in the League of Women Voters and an advisor on child welfare to the League of Nations. Following Lathrop''s life from her childhood and college education through her social service and government work, this book gives an overview of her enduring contribution to progressive politics, women''s employment, and women''s education. It also offers a look at how one influential woman worked within the bounds of traditional conventions about gender, race, and class, and also pushed against them.

Julia Lathrop was a social servant, government activist, and social scientist who expanded notions of women''s proper roles in public life during the early 1900s. Appointed as chief of the U.S. Children''s Bureau, created in 1912 to promote child welfare, she was the first woman to head a United States federal agency. Throughout her life, Lathrop challenged the social norms of the time and became instrumental in shaping Progressive reform. She began her career at Hull House in Chicago, the nation''s most famous social settlement, where she worked to improve public and private welfare for poor people, helped establish America''s first juvenile court, and pushed for immigrant rights. Lathrop was also co-founder of one of America''s first schools of social work. Later in life she became a leader in the League of Women Voters and an advisor on child welfare to the League of Nations. Following Lathrop''s life from her childhood and college education through her social service and government work, this book gives an overview of her enduring contribution to progressive politics, women''s employment, and women''s education. It also offers a look at how one influential woman worked within the bounds of traditional conventions about gender, race, and class, and also pushed against them.

"These shockingly insightful stories, riddled with breathtaking observation, are also, frequently, laugh out loud funny. Wisdom and hilarity are such a gorgeous couple, and Miriam Cohen makes the absolute most of this pairing. Evocative of Lorrie Moore at her sharpest best, Cohen''s is still an entirely new and very welcome voice."—Robin Black, author of Life Drawing and If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This

"In Adults and Other Children, Miriam Cohen renders the minds of children with such vivid intensity and imagination that I couldn’t help but see our world anew. The stories take us on a journey of familiar terrain—a daughter coming to terms with her parents’ divorce, sisters about to lose their mother, a new boy in school—in an unfamiliar and unflinchingly honest way, allowing us to better understand the messy and complicated relationships of our lives. Absorbing, magical, sinister and yet surprisingly sweet, I’ll be thinking of these stories for a long time."—Fatima Farheen Mirza

"In the weird and gorgeous tradition of Angela Carter and Kelly Link, Miriam Cohen has written a manifesto of postmodern womanhood. Her characters are hilariously neurotic, exquisitely self-diminishing, and yet grotesquely eloquent — perverse poets all, wandering the streets of New York or suffocating in the decorated living rooms of suburbia, trying their dire best to navigate life''s labyrinths."—Josh Gaylord, author of When We We''re Animals

"Adults & Other Children reimagines the Bildungsroman, as childhood clashes with adulthood to create a beautiful and terrifying emotional story. By stretching the misconceptions of children so thin and so wide, Miriam Cohen creates a glittering, transparent fabric through which we can finally read more clearly the myths that invent us."—Sabrina Orah Mark, author of Wild Milk

"A chilling view of womanhood—made up of lies, secrets, and fear—expressed in elegant prose."—Kirkus

Adults and Other Children follows four women as they navigate life from the confusion and innocence of childhood to the bizarre and darkly humorous complexities of adulthood. Along the way, we meet a vindictive, and imaginary, nanny, who casts doubts about the true identity of a little girl''s new baby sister; A group of friends who spend their time obsessing over the gory details of a spate of recent crimes; A college professor who has her boss fired over an imagined sexual assault; and a Jewish woman who feigns ignorance in her religion, hoping to endear herself to an Orthodox widower. Time and again, the girls and women in this riveting debut collection fantasize and deceive to get what they want―or what they think they want―while we find ourselves drawn to their often surprising and all too human behavior.