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Tall Tales

September 12, 2008

In her first book, Arianne Cohen ’03—a onetime Harvard Magazine Ledecky Undergraduate Fellow—offered fix-it tips for “the repair-impaired.” Cohen’s second book—The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life on High, with a December 2008 release date—promises “a fascinating and informative look into the world of tall people.”

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Cohen gives us a taste. Writing on the occasion of the death of Sandy Allen—height: 7 feet, 7 1/4 inches—Cohen (who herself is 6 feet, 3 inches tall) recalls the admiration she felt for Allen as a child, “from my vantage point as the tallest little girl in Delmar, N.Y.,” and the sadness and anger she felt when, as an adult, she interviewed Allen and learned that the world had essentially treated her as a circus freak:

She was just 18 inches taller than everyone else. In a world of Michael Phelpses and teeny gymnasts, she wasn’t so different. She had a button nose, smooth pale skin, clear blue eyes. If she hadn’t grown in all directions, “I probably would have gotten married, settled down and had umpteen million kids,” she told me.

Read Cohen’s columns from her days as an undergraduate (Sleeping Smarter, A Woman’s Studies, Love Nesting 101), as well as her 2004 Letter from Phnom Penh, in the Harvard Magazine archives.