Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk: A Novel
Kathleen Rooney
Paperback
(Picador, April 3, 2018)
NOW A NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLERâTransportingâŚwitty, poignant and sparkling.ââPeople (People Picks Book of the Week)âPrescient and quick....A perfect fusing of subject and writer, idea and ideal.ââChicago TribuneâExtraordinaryâŚhilariousâŚElegantly written, Rooney creates a glorious paean to a distant literary life and timeâand an unabashed celebration of human connections that bridge past and future.âPublishers Weekly (starred and boxed)"Rooney's delectably theatrical fictionalization is laced with strands of tart poetry and emulates the dark sparkle of Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Truman Capote. Effervescent with verve, wit, and heart, Rooneyâs nimble novel celebrates insouciance, creativity, chance, and valor."âBooklist (starred review)âIn my reckless and undiscouraged youth,â Lillian Boxfish writes, âI worked in a walnut-paneled office thirteen floors above West Thirty-Fifth StreetâŚâ She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macyâs to become the highest paid advertising woman in the country. It was a job that, she says, âin some ways saved my life, and in other ways ruined it.âNow itâs the last night of 1984 and Lillian, 85 years old but just as sharp and savvy as ever, is on her way to a party. Itâs chilly enough out for her mink coat and Manhattan is grittier nowâher son keeps warning her about a subway vigilante on the prowlâbut the quick-tongued poetess has never been one to scare easily. On a walk that takes her over 10 miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be, while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak, illuminating all the ways New York has changedâand has not. A love letter to city life in all its guts and grandeur, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.Lillian figures she might as well take her time. For now, after all, the night is still young.