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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
Plucky, and full of moxie, Lillian Boxfish is a delightful character. The structure of this novel, and the specificity of place made me check and recheck whether it is a novel or a biography. It’s a novel...but I wish Lillian Boxfish were a real person. Kathleen Rooney elegantly weaves the stories of decades into a single, spectacular evening, and by the end, I was ringing in the new year and cheering her on to a spectacular 1985.
FABULOUS book! The prose is so rich that you feel as though you are along for the walk with Lillian!
I listened to the audiobook. I sense if I’d been giving voice to Lillian, she’d have been more up beat. The narrator made her much more consistently melancholy than I think was needed.
I ended up enjoying this more than I expected to, for a book that's literally just a woman taking a walk through New York City on New Year's Eve and thinking back over her life. In the post-audiobook interview with the author, I learned that Lillian Boxfish was based on Margaret Fishback, which was both exciting — to learn that there was someone who really lived the life of Lillian Boxfish — and a little disappointing — to discover that Rooney hadn't created this character from whole cloth. Still, I appreciate how she made the character come to life, aided by the absolutely stellar audio narration by Xe Sands.
Lillian is an enjoyable character for many reasons, one of which is that Rooney portrays her as a woman ahead of her time — she is the highest-paid woman in advertising in the 1930s and still has the confidence to ask her boss for a raise, parrying his excuses about the men having families to support. She's also interested in the modern fashions and music of 1984 (when the titular walk is set). Rooney includes a little back-and-forth with a Black character as a way of showing that Lillian's interest in rap music isn't meant to be a voyeuristic fascination with another culture but simply a reflection of her open-minded curiosity about the world. It's that same curiosity and confidence that make her interactions with the different characters throughout her walk so delightful; she interacts with the people of the city — the Black chauffeur, the Filipino convenience store clerk, the queer men and women she meets — in a way that doesn't betray any assumptions she might hold about them, and she is rewarded with people's life stories, their open-heartedness, and their generosity.
Lillian's reflections on her life are told out of order, but this is clearly intentional. We're told at the outset that she divorced her husband years earlier, and then Rooney takes us to their tense post-divorce lunch well before we get to hear the story of how they first met. Lillian references certain difficult times in her life several times until we are sufficiently introduced to her as a person for her most painful memories to come to light in full. I didn't find it confusing at all, and I admire the careful way that Rooney planned out the order of Lillian's memories. I was a little worried that the book might end on a cliché or saccharine note — Lillian keeling over at the stroke of midnight, feeling satisfied with her 85 years well lived — but it didn't; Rooney brought things full circle in a much subtler, more satisfying way.
Despite the frequent recommendations, I don't know if I would have picked this up if my book club hadn't chosen "a book set in a single day" as the month's theme, but I'm glad I did!
Lillian is an enjoyable character for many reasons, one of which is that Rooney portrays her as a woman ahead of her time — she is the highest-paid woman in advertising in the 1930s and still has the confidence to ask her boss for a raise, parrying his excuses about the men having families to support. She's also interested in the modern fashions and music of 1984 (when the titular walk is set). Rooney includes a little back-and-forth with a Black character as a way of showing that Lillian's interest in rap music isn't meant to be a voyeuristic fascination with another culture but simply a reflection of her open-minded curiosity about the world. It's that same curiosity and confidence that make her interactions with the different characters throughout her walk so delightful; she interacts with the people of the city — the Black chauffeur, the Filipino convenience store clerk, the queer men and women she meets — in a way that doesn't betray any assumptions she might hold about them, and she is rewarded with people's life stories, their open-heartedness, and their generosity.
Lillian's reflections on her life are told out of order, but this is clearly intentional. We're told at the outset that she divorced her husband years earlier, and then Rooney takes us to their tense post-divorce lunch well before we get to hear the story of how they first met. Lillian references certain difficult times in her life several times until we are sufficiently introduced to her as a person for her most painful memories to come to light in full. I didn't find it confusing at all, and I admire the careful way that Rooney planned out the order of Lillian's memories. I was a little worried that the book might end on a cliché or saccharine note — Lillian keeling over at the stroke of midnight, feeling satisfied with her 85 years well lived — but it didn't; Rooney brought things full circle in a much subtler, more satisfying way.
Despite the frequent recommendations, I don't know if I would have picked this up if my book club hadn't chosen "a book set in a single day" as the month's theme, but I'm glad I did!
A delightful book. Beautiful prose ..... The way it meanders along with the character, it kind of puts me in mind of Catcher in the Rye.
Interesting premise but the plot was a little weak. You could tell the author was fighting to put in certain landmarks, events and poems instead of just telling a good story. If the whole point is that it is a fictional account than you shouldn't have to try so hard to include the fragments.
A nice audio book. The main character is based on the life of Margaret Fishback who was a poet and ad writer for Macy's. Lillian is an octogenarian who is reminiscing about her life in NYC while walking through the city on New Year's Eve 1984. The audio version includes an interview with the author who said the print copy includes a map of the Lilian's 10+ mile walk through Manhattan.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.
On December 31, 1984, 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish takes a walk around New York City. The story jumps back and forth between the 1984 “current” time for Lillian and looking back on her life in New York, from working in advertising at Macy’s to being a mother to her now-grown son.
The past and “present” parts of the book were both compelling. The elderly Ms. Boxfish is someone I would very much enjoy having dinner with and getting to hear more about her life. I think it is neat that the book is at least partially-based on Margaret Fishback, who really was the highest-paid woman in advertising in the 1930s.
On December 31, 1984, 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish takes a walk around New York City. The story jumps back and forth between the 1984 “current” time for Lillian and looking back on her life in New York, from working in advertising at Macy’s to being a mother to her now-grown son.
The past and “present” parts of the book were both compelling. The elderly Ms. Boxfish is someone I would very much enjoy having dinner with and getting to hear more about her life. I think it is neat that the book is at least partially-based on Margaret Fishback, who really was the highest-paid woman in advertising in the 1930s.
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes