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cocoonofbooks 's review for:
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
by Kathleen Rooney
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!