Book Review: "Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk" by Kathleen Rooney
“Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk” by Kathleen Rooney
Bookshop | Kindle
Publisher Synopsis: She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macy's to become the highest paid advertising woman in the country. It was a job that, she says, "in some ways saved my life, and in other ways ruined it."
Now it's 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. It's chilly enough out for her mink coat and Manhattan is grittier now--her son keeps warning her about a subway vigilante on the prowl--but 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 changed--and 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.
Rating (out of 5): 4
Trigger Warnings: suicide attempts, alcoholism
Review: It’s a total accident that this review and my most recent (“Tuesday Nights in 1980” by Molly Prentiss) are set in New York City in the 1980s. This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I quite enjoyed it. For fear of over-using the phrase “love letter to New York,” I won’t call it that, but instead, it’s one woman’s story—Lillian Boxfish, an octogenarian who is out for a lengthy walk on New Year’s Eve in 1984. While Lillian walks from Murray Hill to the Financial District to Chelsea and back to Murray Hill, we learn more about her life in flashbacks.
I learned from the author’s note that the novel is loosely based on the life of Margaret Fishback—a copywriter for R.H. Macy’s back in the 1930s. Not knowing that throughout the entire book didn’t detract from it at all; Rooney’s Boxfish is charming, self-assured, and more than a little ahead of her time. Throughout the flashbacks, we read about her life in New York in the late 1920s, how she came to be the highest-paid woman in advertising as a copywriter at R.H. Macy’s, how pregnancy forced her out of her job, and more.
Lillian’s voice is distinctive—to be expected from a brilliant adwoman (and published poet!). As she walks through the city on New Year’s Eve, she strikes up conversations with nearly everyone she encounters. Everyone she meets has a story, from the owner of her favorite Italian restaurant to the Filipino teen working in his parents’ bodega.
New York in 1984 was not the New York of 2021 (or, should I say, pre-pandemic New York). I mentally followed Lillian along her journey via the New York I know, and at one point she encounters the abandoned raised tracks of the West Side Improvement Project: “Now most people seem to think it should be torn down, and I expect it will be, once the city finds the money. I wish they could leave it standing, fix it up, run trains on it again—or come up with some other function for it, though I can’t imagine what that might be. Everyone is always too quick to discard things.” Those familiar with New York will recognize this as the site of what would become the High Line, an elevated park on the west side of the city.
But if you’re less familiar with the city, this book is still highly engaging. Written in the first person, Lillian drops notes of wisdom throughout, and her favorite hobby—walking—is one of mine as well. “This, I am reminded, is why I love walking in the city, taking to the streets in pursuit of some spontaneous and near-arbitrary objective. If one knows oneself out of one’s routine—and in so doing knocks others gently out of theirs—then one can now and again create these momentary opportunities to be better than one is.”
Lillian’s voice reminded me of old screwball comedies. There’s not a ton of conflict or action here—more self-reflection and one woman’s story intertwined with her love affair with New York—but if that sounds up your alley, you’ll love this one.
TL;DR: An incredibly engaging, New York City-centric novel told in the voice of Lillian Boxfish, our octogenarian heroine who goes for a walk on New Year’s Eve and reflects upon her life. Loosely based on Margaret Fishback, an adwoman and poet of the 1930s, you’ll find Lillian’s NYE adventure one you can’t put down.
If you liked this, try:
“Tuesday Nights in 1980” by Molly Prentiss (Bookshop | Kindle) (my review here)
“City of Girls” by Elizabeth Gilbert (Bookshop | Kindle) (Elizabeth’s review here)
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