Paula Marantz Cohen

In a tale inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion, dedicated guidance counselor Anne Ehrlich works to help her high school charges through the perils of their college admissions and remembers a past love whose nephew requires her assistance. By the author of Much Ado About Jesse Kaplan. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

Or Love, Death, and the SATs

Jane Austen in Scarsdale

An invalid for most of her life, Alice James, sister to author Henry James and alienist William James, helps her brothers track Jack the Ripper.

A Most Curious Tale of Henry James & Jack the Ripper

What Alice Knew

An invigorating exploration of the pleasures and social benefits of conversation Talking Cure is a timely and enticing excursion into the art of good conversation. Paula Marantz Cohen reveals how conversation connects us in ways that social media never can and explains why simply talking to each other freely and without guile may be the cure to what ails our troubled society. Drawing on her lifelong immersion in literature and culture and her decades of experience as a teacher and critic, Cohen argues that we learn to converse in our families and then carry that knowledge into a broader world where we encounter diverse opinions and sensibilities. She discusses the role of food in encouraging conversation, the challenges of writing dialogue in fiction, the pros and cons of Zoom, the relationship of conversation to vaudeville acts, and the educational value of a good college seminar where students learn to talk about ideas. Cohen looks at some of the famous groups of writers and artists in history whose conversation fed their creativity, and details some of the habits that can result in bad conversation. Blending the immediacy of a beautifully crafted memoir with the conviviality of an intimate gathering with friends, Talking Cure makes a persuasive case for the civilizing value of conversation and is essential reading for anyone interested in the chatter that fuels culture.

An Essay on the Civilizing Power of Conversation

Talking Cure

An award-winning scholar and teacher explores how Shakespeare's greatest characters were built on a learned sense of empathy While exploring Shakespeare's plays with her students, Paula Marantz Cohen discovered that teaching and discussing his plays unlocked a surprising sense of compassion in the classroom. In this short and illuminating book, she shows how Shakespeare's genius lay with his ability to arouse empathy, even when his characters exist in alien contexts and behave in reprehensible ways. Cohen takes her readers through a selection of Shakespeare's most famous plays, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and The Merchant of Venice, to demonstrate the ways in which Shakespeare thought deeply and clearly about how we treat "the other." Cohen argues that only through close reading of Shakespeare can we fully appreciate his empathetic response to race, class, gender, and age. Wise, eloquent, and thoughtful, this book is a forceful argument for literature's power to champion what is best in us.

What Shakespeare Teaches Us about Empathy

Of Human Kindness

Cohen argues that silent film allowed America to sever its literary and linguistic ties to Europe and develop an original form of expression compatible with American strengths and weaknesses. She connects the rise of film and the rise of America as a cultural center and 20th century world power.

Silent Film & the Triumph of the American Myth

Cohen tackles Austen's final novel, Persuasion, about first love getting a second chance. At age 21, Anne Ehrlich was persuaded by her family to break up with her poverty-stricken boyfriend, Ben Cutler. Thirteen years later, Anne is working as a guidance counselor at a competitive high school when Ben, now the well-known founder of a travel guide series, walks back into her life.

This provocative study traces Alfred Hitchcock's long directorial career from Victorianism to postmodernism. Paula Marantz Cohen considers a sampling of Hitchcock's best films—Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho—as well as some of his more uneven ones—Rope, The Wrong Man, Topaz—and makes connections between his evolution as a filmmaker and trends in the larger society. Drawing on a number of methodologies including feminism, psychoanalysis, and family systems, the author provides an insightful look at the paradox of a Victorian-style gentleman who evolved into one of the leading masters of the modern medium of film. Cohen posits that Hitchcock's films are, in part, a masculine response to the domestic, psychological novels that had appealed primarily to women during the Victorian era. His career, she argues, can be seen as an attempt to balance "the two faces of Victorianism": the masculine legacy of law and hierarchy and the feminine legacy of feeling and imagination. Cohen asserts that Hitchcock's films reflect his Victorian legacy and serve as a map for ideological trends. She charts his development from his British period through his classic Hollywood years into his later phase, tracing a conceptual evolution that corresponds to an evolution in cultural identity—one that builds on a Victorian inheritance and ultimately discards it.

The Legacy of Victorianism

Alfred Hitchcock

"A marvelously rich and intelligent read, atmospheric, witty, irreverent, and not least a sharply perceptive portrait of those three extraordinary Jameses." -John Banville, author of The Infinities Under Certain Circumstances, No One Is More Suited to Solving a Crime than a Woman Confined to Her Bed An invalid for most her life, Alice James is quite used to people underestimating her. And she generally doesn't mind. But this time she is not about to let things alone. Yes, her brother Henry may be a famous author, and her other brother William a rising star in the new field of psychology. But when they all find themselves quite unusually involved in the chase for a most vile new murderer-one who goes by the chilling name of Jack the Ripper-Alice is certain of two things: No one could be more suited to gather evidence about the nature of the killer than her brothers. But if anyone is going to correctly examine the evidence and solve the case, it will have to be up to her. Praise for Paula Marantz Cohen "Cohen's wit is sharp, smart, and satirical, and her characterizations are vividly on target." -San Francisco Chronicle

A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a nice Jewish widower must be in want of a wife. Jane Austen centered her classic novels of manners around "three or four families in a country village." So does Paula Marantz Cohen in her novel, a witty twist on Pride and Prejudice--except this time, the "village" is Boca Raton, Florida. Eligible men, especially ones in possession of a good fortune and country club privileges, are scarce. When goodhearted meddler Carol Newman learns that the wealthy Norman Grafstein has lost his wife, she resolves to marry him off to her lonely mother-in-law, May. The novel charts the progress of May's love life as well as that of her two closest friends: the strong-minded former librarian Flo Kliman and the flamboyant Lila Katz. If there weren't confusion enough, Flo's great-niece Amy, a film student at NYU, suddenly arrives with a camera crew determined to get it all on tape. Will May and Norman eventually find happiness? Will Flo succumb to the charms of the suavely cosmopolitan Mel Shirmer? Will Amy's movie about them win an Academy Award--or at least a prize at the NYU student film competition? Complications and misunderstandings abound in this romantic and perceptive comedy of manners.

A Novel

Jane Austen in Boca

Anne Ehrlich is a dedicated guidance counselor steering her high-school charges through the perils of college admission. Thirteen years ago, when she was graduating from Columbia University, her wealthy family---especially her dear grandmother Winnie---persuaded her to give up the love of her life, Ben Cutler, a penniless boy from Queens College. Anne has never married and hasn't seen Ben since---until his nephew turns up in her high school and starts applying to college. Now Ben is a successful writer, a world traveler, and a soon-to-be married man; and Winnie's health is beginning to fail. All of these changes have Anne beginning to wonder...Can old love be rekindled, or are past mistakes too painful to forget? With all the wit and perceptiveness of Jane Austen's Persuasion, Jane Austen in Scarsdale is a fresh and romantic new comedy from a novelist with "a knack for making modern life reflect literature in the most engaging manner" (Library Journal).

"Cohen has made an essential classic cool."—Beth Kephart "Juliet Capulet would find a worthy BFF in Beatrice Bunson."—Cordelia Frances Biddle High school begins, and to Beatrice Bunson nothing is the same, not even her best friend, Nan. The "new" Nan doesn't hang out with Bea after school; instead she's running for Student Council and going to parties and avoiding Bea at lunchtime. The boys who were gross in middle school have become surprisingly polite, while the "cool" kids are still a mystery. Bea's older sister, meanwhile, acts like she's living in a soap opera. On the bright side, there's English class with Mr. Martin, where Beatrice discovers that Shakespeare has something to say about almost everything—and that nothing in life is as dramatic as Romeo and Juliet. But when Nan gets in over her head in her new social life, it's up to Beatrice to restore her reputation—and she may need to make a few new friends to pull it off. One of them, the slightly brainy guy that Beatrice meets at her grandmother's retirement home, is definitely kind of cute, and probably dateable. (Fortunately, nothing is the same in high school.) As Beatrice and her classmates tackle Romeo and Juliet, they unveil the subtleties of the play as well as broader lessons of love, family, honor, and misunderstandings. Guided by Mr. Martin, these ninth-graders help us to understand Shakespeare, as Shakespeare helps them begin to understand themselves. "Beatrice Bunson's Guide to Romeo and Juliet whisked me straight back to my own high school days, when I read Juliet beside a Romeo I'd long blushingly admired. Shakespeare was talking to me, I was sure, but I wasn't always precisely sure what he was saying—a confusion I would have never experienced had I had this smart, tender story within a story at hand. Explicating the secret codes of heady teen romance with as much sagacity as she deciphers Shakespearean sonnets and wit, Cohen has made an essential classic cool."—Beth Kephart, author of Going Over, One Thing Stolen, and This Is the Story of You "Paula Marantz Cohen hits all the right notes in her charming, wise and heart-stirring tale of teen angst, young love, betrayal and loyalty. Beatrice 'Bea' Bunson makes a spunky heroine, a member of the 'smart set' who's too self-deprecating to recognize her worth as she navigates high-school cliques, family dramas, and not-so-secret crushes. Reading Romeo and Juliet for an English class, Bea ponders the weighty issues of honor and courage, and then finds those forces impacting her life. I couldn't help but picture Juliet time-traveling to a 21st century teen environment—and then went one step further and imagined Shakespeare's young heroine coping with tense school lunches and clandestine beer parties. Juliet Capulet would find a worthy BFF in Beatrice Bunson."—Cordelia Frances Biddle, author of the Martha Beale mystery series "This is a charming book. The story of Romeo and Juliet intertwines with the more comic vicissitudes (SAT word) of Beatrice Bunson's first year in high school. Paula Marantz Cohen clearly knows both Shakespeare and ninth graders. Warning to teachers of high school Shakespeare classes: be prepared to revise your lesson plan."—Gillian Murray Kendall, professor of English Language and Literature (and Shakespeare scholar), Smith College "What's the best way to deal with high school drama? Apply the problem-solving strategies of Shakespeare…Cohen offers up lessons of theory and language while engaging her readers with enjoyable characters who find themselves entangled in Shakespearean plots that must be unwound with compassion and insight…Her discussions of plot, language, and thematic elements will serve young scholars better than SparkNotes. Ideal for those who are charmed by the romance of Shakespeare. And who isn't?"—Kirkus Reviews Paula Marantz Cohen's novels include Suzanne Davis Gets a Life (Paul Dry Books 2014), Jane Austen in Scarsdale or Love, Death and the SATs, and What Alice Knew. She teaches English at Drexel University.

Beatrice Bunson's Guide to Romeo and Juliet

" This provocative study traces Alfred Hitchock's long directorial career from Victorianism to postmodernism. Paul Cohen considers a number of Hitchcock's most acclaimed films -- Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho -- as well as some of his less well-known ones -- Rope, the Wrong Man, Topaz -- and makes connections between his evolution as a filmmaker and trends in the larger society. Drawing on a number of methodologies including feminism, psychoanalysis, and family systems, the author provides an insightful look at the paradox of a Victorian era. His career, she argues, can be seen as an attempt to balance "the two faces of Victorianism": a masculine legacy of law and hierarchy and a feminine legacy of feeling and imagination. Also central is the Victorian model of the nuclear family and its permutations, especially the father-daughter dyad. Cohen postulates a fundamental dynamic in Hitchcock's films, what she call a "daughter's effect," and relates it to the social role of the family as an institution and to Hitchcock's own relationship with his daughter, Patricia, who appeared in three of his films. Cohen argues that Hitchcock's films reflect his Victorian legacy and serve as a map for ideological trends. She charts his development from his British period through his classic Hollywood years into his later phase, tracing a conceptual evolution that corresponds to an evolution in cultural identity -- one that builds on a Victorian inheritance and ultimately discards it.

Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth connects the rise of film and the rise of America as a cultural center and twentieth-century world power. Silent film, Paula Cohen reveals, allowed America to sever its literary and linguistic ties to Europe and answer the call by nineteenth-century writers like Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman for an original form of expression compatible with American strengths and weaknesses. When film finally began to talk in 1927, the medium had already done its work. It had helped translate representation into a dynamic visual form and had "Americanized" the world. Cohen explores the way film emerged as an American medium through its synthesis of three basic elements: the body, the landscape, and the face. Nineteenth-century American culture had already charged these elements with meaning--the body through vaudeville and burlesque, landscape through landscape painting and moving panoramas, and the face through portrait photography. Integrating these popular forms, silent film also developed genres that showcased each of its basic elements: the body in comedy, the landscape in the western, and the face in melodrama. At the same time, it helped produce a new idea of character, embodied in the American movie star. Cohen's book offers a fascinating new perspective on American cultural history. It shows how nineteenth-century literature can be said to anticipate twentieth-century film--how Douglas Fairbanks was, in a sense, successor to Walt Whitman. And rather than condemning the culture of celebrity and consumption that early Hollywood helped inspire, the book highlights the creative and democratic features of the silent-film ethos. Just as notable, Cohen champions the concept of the "American myth" in the wake of recent attempts to discredit it. She maintains that American silent film helped consolidate and promote a myth of possibility and self-making that continues to dominate the public imagination and stands behind the best impulses of our contemporary world.

Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth

Professor of Humanities Paula Marantz Cohen

The Daughter as Reader juxtaposes personal narrative with literary criticism to celebrate the ways in which literature enriches and shapes individual experience. Paula Marantz Cohen's lucidly written and compelling autobiographical essays read a variety of literary texts and cultural themes in provocative new ways, illuminated by feminist theory, psychoanalytic criticism, and literary history as well as by her experiences as daughter,sister, wife and mother. A Thomas Wyatt poem illumi-nates the author's reactions to an episode of sexual harass-ment; her private struggle with anorexia nervosa inspires questions on the significance of eating disorders within a larger feminine aesthetic; an analysis of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw yields startling insights into the art of child-rearing. The growing genre of autobiographical literary criticism--popularized by such works as Alice Kaplan's French Lessons: A Memoir and Marianna De Marco Torgovnik's Crossing Ocean Parkway: Readings by an Italian American Daughter--gains new ground with the publication of The Daughter as Reader. Courageously and creatively attempting to heal the breach between the private and the public--the literary and the critical, the mother and the professional, the wife and the feminist--it is essential reading for anyone interested in the connections between the personal, the literary, and the philosophical. "...provides stimulating readings of the various texts, but also a provocative commentary on such issues as the problem of father-pleasing among feminist scholars, the limitations of Freudian literalness in assessing fantasy and repression, and the relationship between (Blakean) experience and variant readings." --Annis Pratt, University of Wisconsin, Madison Paula Marantz Cohen is Professor of Humanities and Communications, Drexel University.

Paula Marantz Cohen

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