It is New Year's Eve and Lillian Boxfish, age 85, leaves her cat Phoebe, and her apartment in Murray Hill to dine alone at one of her favorite restaurants. She is early so she decides to go for a walk. Walking is something she has done all her life, often walking over five miles per day. It is in walking that she has found her muse, inspiring her to write poetry and come up with her very best ideas. Now when she walks, she surveys modern society and ponders social change. Now her thoughts are heavily interspersed with reminiscences of her youth.

Lillian is not at all hungry, so after a quick drink at the restaurant, she finds herself not ready to return home. So she walks some more. And she walks... and she walks... her destination is to another restaurant - Delmonico's. She feels that by the time she gets there she will finally be hungry.

Lillian's reminiscences relate her memories of some of the most interesting and historically significant times in the history of New York. In her bohemian youth she has lived through the affluent 1920s, the 'Crash' in the 1930s, prohibition, WWII, and the list goes on and on. Her story has so much potential! However... throughout it all, Lillian seemed disconnected to events. Always quite successful, she seems unaffected by the stock market crash as she worked right through it. She drank and partied her way through prohibition.

"I am old and all I have left is time. I don't mean time to live; I mean free time. Time to fill. Time to kill until time kills me."

Now an octogenarian, Lillian laments her lost youth, and reflects upon the loneliness incumbent on the aged - when many friends, acquaintances, and contemporaries are no longer living. My problem with that was that the story read almost like a report. We learned that she had many people in her life. Friends, coworkers, lovers - people she adored and people she barely tolerated. But... we didn't get to 'know' any of them. Not even her very best friend Helen. Other than her name and what she did for a living, Helen was an enigma. Other than the fact that Lillian and her husband Max were truly in love, we didn't 'know' anything about him. We learned that Lillian just about always had a cat. We learned their names but nothing about their personalities. I admired Lillian, who wouldn't? She was vivacious, witty and very intelligent. She was a feminist and a career woman who lived in a time when women just wanted to stop working and get married and raise a family. She championed equal pay for equal work. She was a maverick. But all of these admirable traits were related with no real empathy. We didn't learn 'how' Lillian felt - and 'why' she championed the causes she did.

"Winter, at bay for weeks, has taken sundown as its cue"

This novel employs some well rendered imagery and was well researched. But - it wasn't a warm novel, rather a relating of events and people. The only warmth I could discern was when she thought about her husband Max and her son, Johnny. Oh, and her work. Her work was her comfort. Now long retired, one realizes that she no longer has any comfort - other than her walking through a city that she loves with palpable affection. My problem with "Lillian Boxfish goes for a walk" was that for me it read like a history book - not a novel. In a novel I expect to get to know the characters and through that knowing form a temporary bond with them. Because it was related the way it was, I didn't really care about the characters, though the book did warm up at around the 62% mark. It was then that we learned of Lillian's bout of depression, her alcoholism, and her subsequent divorce from the love of her life. By the end of the book I found I had acquired a deep respect for Lillian.

I expected to like this novel more than I did. I did like Lillian Boxfish's character, but I didn't empathize with her as much as I thought I would. She seemed too advantaged and too self indulgent - but after sticking with her story right up until the end, I realized that, like most people, Lillian had hidden depths that are not at first apparent. Also I found her story verbose and over long. Funny, because I love words, and learned several new ones whilst reading this novel. Some of which include: pulchritudinous, simulacrum, anhedonia, augury, bellicose, hermetists, evanescent and unctuous.

Many of my fellow book reviewers really loved Lillian's story, but sadly, it was not a real favorite of mine. Perhaps you will relish it more than I...

(3.5 stars rounded down for NetGalley)

"Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk" is about Lillian Boxfish taking a walk on New Year's Eve, 1984. In the course of the walk, she passes many places that jog memories and she retells a large portion of the main events of her life. Even though this novel is inspired by Margaret Fishback, Kathleen Rooney uses her imagination to build the character more than the facts of Fishback's life. This means you aren't getting a Margaret Fishback biography. Instead you get the history of Lillian Boxfish, how she rises to prominence in the advertising world, how her life has moved toward eighty-four years. For most of this novel, I am rooting for Lillian, her history being one that reminds me of the glass-ceiling, male-dominated corporate reality of the '50s, and even through this, Lillian is a strong, independent woman...until she isn't anymore.

I don't not want to give away too much of the plot, but I really liked Lillian Boxfish in the first half of the novel, a strong, no nonsense woman, but then she meets her husband, it kind of turns into a "the prince saved my life and then ruined it" kind of Disney movie story that really undercuts the power that Boxfish shows throughout the first half of the story. Undercut is the best word to describe what her marriage and everything that happens afterward. It makes the character that I loved in the beginning into someone I really did not care much about toward the end. The only thing that really kept me moving to the end was that the writing shows a great display of talent, fluidity, and poetic language. So even though everything I loved about Lillian Boxfish was gone, I still really loved the writing.

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 the evening of December 31, 1984, Lillian Boxfish set out for her traditional New Year's Eve dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant. Despite not being hungry after absentmindedly consuming most of a package of Oreo cookies while speaking on the phone with her son, she is determined to walk all the way there, thinking it might bring her appetite back. Walking the familiar streets of New York brings back over 50 years of memories, where once people knew her as the "highest paid advertising woman in the world." Based on the story of Margaret Fishback, Kathleen Rooney's book is a journey of imaginings using grace and elegance, together with humor and tragedy to investigate the life of a woman we otherwise would never have known.

The concept of this book is simply ingenious. On the one hand, we follow Lillian's paths along the streets of New York from the last hours of 1984 until the first moments of 1985. Her stops along the way include not only her original destination (her traditional New Year's Eve Italian restaurant), but a list of spontaneous favorite spots that have significance to her - from both her past and her present. While she makes her way, we not only get to experience the strangers she meets, but also the memories from her past that come to mind along the way. In this way, we get an overview of Lillian's New York life, and what a life that was! Furthermore, Rooney gives Lillian a very liberal outlook on the world, one that is (for the most part) non-judgmental, and accepting of practically everyone, even to the point of possibly putting herself into harm's way. (Think about it - an 85-year-old woman, walking the streets of New York at night, alone, in 1984-5! How much more vulnerable can you make yourself?)

This is certainly my favorite type of fiction (although usually this happens more with historical fiction, and less with contemporary fiction - of which this is essentially both), shining a light on real people about whom we know little to nothing about, and Rooney's spotlight was as startlingly bright as it was flattering. To begin with, Rooney's writing style is so sophisticated and charming that you can't help but believe that Lillian was not only a talented writer and poet, but that she must have been even more beguiling than Rooney portrays her. Rooney's use of language is also endearingly witty, and I'm trying to figure out how many words in the thesaurus I'll need to use to describe this book, because it's already starting to run out of appropriate adjectives.

As you can see, I'm in love with this book, and that makes it terribly difficult to review without becoming so effusive that my readers get sick of me. So rather than go on and on with piles of compliments that get not only whipped cream but several cherries on top, I'm simply going to say that I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and it deserves more than just a full five stars out of five! (Note to self: where have you been all my reading life, Kathleen Rooney?)

This breezy and short read (about 3.5 hours, counting what I started yesterday when I received the copy) was an absolute delight for my first snow day of the school year. I sat with a mug of chai at my side and my Kindle in hand and fell into the world of Lillian Boxfish. Loosely based on Margaret Fishback, real-life author, poet and copywriter for Macy's in the 20s and 30s, this short novel takes us on a 10-mile walk with the headstrong and steadfast 80-something LIllian on New Year's Eve 1984 (ending just after 1985 is rung in). I believe there is a little of Lillian in all of us and perhaps there should be. Resistance to change, refusal to relinquish personal power, even perhaps resisting the notion of "growing old" and giving up our daily routines is exemplified in the novel. Throughout the entire novel, I longed to sit with Lillian, having a cup of tea and a nice chat. I felt I could learn lots about being a woman from her. I was kind of sad, actually, when I came to the end and had to tell her goodbye.
I received and ARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored this book. I took my time with this one, as the writing is so beautiful and the message at the end was so powerful, that I wanted to absorb every word.

Lillian Boxfish is one of the most delightful characters you will encounter in your reading jaunts. She's lively, original, creative, intelligent, witty, surprising and a young 85-years-old. She is quite ageless. She's the eccentric aunt you never had, or the grandmother who spoiled you when your mother wasn't looking.

In this cheeky novel, Lillian gives you a tour of some of her favorite New York City haunts as she takes a walk on a wintry New Years' Eve in 1984 before Guliani cleaned up the city of its pimps, prostitutes and drug addicts. Shake Shack isn't in Madison Square Park yet - pushers are as Lillian walks by.

But Lillian also gives you a tour of New York City of the 1930's when she was the highest paid female copy writer of the 1930's. The jingles, rhymes and poems sluiced through her mind, and poured out of her. The author captures that talent convincingly. What would it be like to have that gift which seemed fairly prolific and effortless for Lillian? Lillian tells her story of working for R.H. Macy in its Golden Age and being an independent woman during the Depression when the rest of the U.S. was struggling to survive. Lillian thrived, and enjoyed herself and the city.

Looking back on it 50 years later, there's that bittersweet mixture of pride, nostalgia, regret, sorrow and courage to sally forth and make the best of the present. Lillian is a character you never tire of because she doesn't live by convention. She makes authentic choices whether it's to spontaneously join a family whom she doesn't know for New Years Eve at a favorite steak restaurant (and pay their bill) when there's no seat for a single person to eat that evening, or attend an artsy New Years Eve party of a young friend where everyone is under 40. You may catch yourself thinking I hope I'm like Lillian when I'm 80-something. My grandmother was born the year after Lillian and it was fun to compare the two in my mind. Lillian kept saying and doing the most surprising things. I couldn't wait to read what she would say and do next.

This is one of my favorite reads of the past 12 months. Our librarian recommended it, and it would be a fun selection for a book group. The author is one of the most talented authors I have read in years. It's difficult to write upbeat, deep, original and humorous stories. Kathleen Rooney accomplished it. I look forward to reading her future work. Her writing is quite stunning.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney was fabulous. I loved that the female main character was "of a particular age" and reflecting on her life and work success.

I truly enjoyed the feisty and unconventional main character, Lillian Boxfish, a career woman ahead of her time. The setting is New York City between 1930's and 1980's. Lillian is the highest paid advertising woman in the country and works for Macy's department store. She does her best thinking while she walks and the story culminates with a very long walk on New Year's Eve when she's 85 years old. She visits many parts of the city that night and interacts with an assortment of interesting people. Her story is linked with interesting transitions going on in New York City as well as changes in the field of advertising and women's roles. I liked the writing style and the humor in the book.

A delightful read! Based on the true life story of the highest-paid woman engaged in advertising, the book traces Lillian Boxfish's New Year's Eve walk through Manhattan. While walking, the reader learns about what experiences shaped Lillian and her life.
The author did a remarkable job making you feel that you were walking right beside Lillian. If you are familiar with New York City, you will easily identify all the passing landmarks and locales that she did. I enjoyed this book from start to finish.

Wasn't for me but I can see why other readers loved it. I know my mother would!

Lillian is 84 and on New Years Eve in 1984 she decides to walk all over New York City. As we follow her on this walk, she muses about her life, and particularly her career as a famous and highest paid female copywriter (until she was forced to resign when she was married).
This book is a slow burn and Lillian is interesting in that she is smart, witty and friendly to all she meets on her walk. There is a bit of sentimentality for New York City and may be best enjoyed by those who have lived in the city, especially during the 1980s.
I actually think the book rose in my mind at the end when I discovered that Lillian Boxfish is very loosely based on the life of Margaret Fishback. I understand why Rooney is fascinated with Fishback and I think a novel actually bringing her story to life would have been more interesting to me. Margaret was "the" advertising woman before all those "Mad Men" types and how fascinating that would be to explore. Instead I felt that Rooney wanted to acknowledge and applaud Fishback's life, but in a way that is clearly fictional and so wouldn't offend anyone. And in that I think she has achieved her goal, but perhaps at the expense of the reader because it is hard to truly engage with Lillian when there is an obvious barrier between us.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a delightful romp with Lillian Boxfish through all the seasons of her life. Coming to New York in her early 20's and landing a job at Macy's was a coup in itself but rising to be the highest paid female in advertising was indeed a tribute to her capabilities.. As we walk with her through her life's journey-through her marriage, the birth of her son and her husband Max's betrayal and subsequent divorce-we live through the ups and downs she faces and has to overcome-there are so many lessons we can learn from her-through her independence, the way she deals with both her friends as well as some of the unsavory characters she meets, the way she (as an octogenarian) still insists on walking through the streets of New York rather than accept a ride-completely unafraid to live alone with her cat and looking toward the remainder of her years with her head held high ready to accept whatever fate has in store for her. What a remarkable woman and what a remarkable book. I would gladly walk with her and hopefully have the opportunity to learn from her along the way. She is truly a breath of fresh air.

The Premise

It's the last night of 1984, and Lillian Boxfish is an 85 year-old Manhattanite out for a walk. After a disappointing dinner at her usual New Year's Eve restaurant, Lillian decides to take a walk around her true love, New York City.

As she circles Manhattan on her feet, she meets those that make that city so strong. Bartenders, bodega clerks, parents, VERY pregnant women, criminals, children, limo drivers, security guards -- all decent people living in Manhattan at a time when Manhattan wasn't so decent. She finds common ground with all of them.

During her walk Lillian reminiscences on her life. Coming to Manhattan as a young woman, she took the city by storm as a copywriter and then an advertising wonder for R.H. Macy's, becoming the highest paid advertising woman in the country along the way. But that wasn't enough for Lillian: she also used her quick-wit and her way with language to become a celebrated poet.

There was love and marriage, a child, and then heartbreak. There were incredible highs and horrendous lows, and a life lived between the two extremes.

Lillian's life is the story of a generation of forgotten women--strong and seemingly able to do it all. It's also the story of a beautiful city that had lost its way (although we all know it found it again, thanks to Lillian and people like her).

My Thoughts

Okay, I love Lillian Boxfish. I LOVE her. She is the grandmother I want around right now (I loved both my grandmothers, but they're both sadly gone). I love her as much as I love Jessica Fletcher (Read about my "Murder, She Wrote" OBSESSION).

I was sucked into Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk from the very start. Lillian hooked me. Her walk around mid 1980's Manhattan had me racking my brain -- I moved to New York in 1989, so a lot of the construction she talks about was just finishing. And the whole Bernie Goetz/Subway Vigilante thing? I remember that, from the national news (although it was still a thing when I lived there).

Lillian takes everyone she meets on her walk at face value, creating a connection with everyone of them. This is a lesson in life -- find something you have in common with everyone, even those trying to hurt you. We're all human, and we all want the world to see the best in us. And CIVILITY, such a wonderful thing. We all need more of it (especially on social media, especially in today's highly political world!) Lillian takes civility as her watchword, but not just for civility's sake. To her, it makes the world a better, more reasonable place.

. . . but I say civility because I believe that good manners are essential to the preservation of humanity -- one's own and others' -- but only to the extent that civility is honest and reasonable, not merely the mindless handmaiden of propriety.


So, in creating connections and using civility, Lillian makes friends and helps those she meets in little and big ways.

But not only does Kathleen Rooney use the ineradicable Lillian to show us Manhattan in its 1980's unseemliness. Lillian's walk is a pageant of New York City's history and grandeur, from The Jazz Age to the beginning of rap and hip hop (which Lillian, as a poet and a lover of language, really liked, at least The Sugarhill Gang and "Rapper's Delight"), from prohibition to the beginning of Donald Trump.

Lillian is lovely in her ability to look at every facet of The City and her life with realism. She doesn't shy away from the bad or the ugly, knowing that there is beauty there, as well. I like to think she knows that you can't have beauty without ugly, you can't have the good without the bad.

Knowing that, Lillian (though the wonderful Kathleen Rooney) faces her own bout with true depression, presenting it in all its ugly sadness. Through Lillian, we see that even those that seem immune can fall into deep depression, a hole from which they cannot be pulled without serious professional intervention. Rooney delves into this with forthrightness and realism; exposing readers to the shame that shadowed depression and mental illness in the past, but presenting it with the frankness it needs and deserves.

Lillian was an artist, one that found a way to use words and language to sell the American dream (and R.H. Macy's products), but also to describe the world around her in poetry. She was down-to-earth and humble about her gift, but also knew it drove her forward and improved her life. She used her gifts to make a living, creating an exceptional life in the process.

Kathleen Rooney styled Lillian Boxfish on a real person -- Margaret Fishback, who was quite a bit like Lillian in profession and accomplishments. As Rooney says of her high school friend who discovered Fishback in the archives at Duke:

Angela. . .quickly realized that Fishback was a figure --a poet, a protofeminist, a successful career woman, and a mother -- who would appeal to me as a poet, a feminist, and a professional myself.
And, after reading through Fishback's works, Rooney confessed:

I instantly felt a deep connection to Fishback -- an affinity for her writing both of ads and of poems, and her overall sensibility -- though she'd been dead since the mid-1980's. I knew that I wanted to do something to bring her story and those of others like her (this whole forgotten generation of pre-Mad Men advertising women) into the light.
Rooney is very clear, though, that Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk is not a biography of Margaret Fishback, although the poems and ads in the book written by Lillian were Margaret's creations (she's used them with permission from her estate and Margaret's son). In reading between the lines, I have to think that she used Margaret's professional career for Lillian, but created Lillian's life from her imagination. Or at least that's what I think--so take that for what it's worth.

Any way, Lillian Boxfish is wonderful. She's pure New York and her life is a 20th Century life of a remarkable woman. There were many women like her, before the word feminism was uttered, women who did it all because it was what they wanted, or needed, to do.

Seriously, run out and get this Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk. It will make a trip to NYC seem necessary. In fact, I think we should all take Lillian Boxfish walking tours on our next visit! Yes, it's 10 miles. But, if Lillian can do it, so can we--right?!

"Solvitur ambulando: It is solved by walking." So lives the character of Lillian Boxfish. I downloaded this book and started it but could not get interested. When it was published, a friend recommended it, so I tried again. I was completely enchanted by this sophisticated tale of a woman's walk through New York City and through her life.

The two stories-Lillian's past and present- take place on a New Year's Eve 1984. She, as a lifelong walker, sets out to dinner but ends up returning to her past as she walks by landmarks in which her life was lived. She tells the story of why each is important. Her career, her life, her highs, her lows, and her regrets are all revealed. She sums it up by saying, "The point of living in the world is just to stay interested."

This is a beautifully written novel loosely based on the life a real female ad writer, Margaret Fishback, who rose to great success. All of the jingles were real ads written by Fishback. I was so sorry for this story to end.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney is an amazing novel because Lillian is a very interesting character. She is funny and spunky and has lead a fascinating life. It is New Years Eve 1984 and 84 year old Lillian is walking in Manhattan, where she has lived since 1926. An author and former advertising executive, Lillian will not let her age stop her from living. Walking and interacting with people is her hobby. Rooney cleverly intersperses Lillian's life story with the adventures of her final walk of 1984. This novel is unique and a definite must read for people who like to experience, not just observe. The reader is left wondering what Lillian will do next.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a ARC of Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk by Kathleen Rooney.

This was a delightful and charming read, which in parts is a love letter to NYC and at once a lovely journey of an extraordinary lady. I was ambivalent towards this novel at first, but Lillian's warmth, wit, keen observation and gracious manner quietly won me over. As Lillian strolls through the city on New Year's Eve , she recalls events and occasions that shaped her life over the decades. From the early 1900's until NYC 1985, Lillian guides us through the heartbeat of New York City.
Beautifully written with an exquisite eye for detail, Kathleen Rooney has written a wonderful ode to New York and the feisty ladies who inhabit the Island.

My Book of the Month pick for January was somehow overlooked until this past weekend. Which is such a shame, because Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk is a lovely book. Kathleen Rooney wrote such a polished story about the vivacious 85 year-old Lillian Boxfish (inspired by Margaret Fishback,) as she takes a ten mile walk through New York on New Year’s Eve 1984, that cracking the spine over the past few days has felt like a luxury.

Lillian is revisiting key parts of her life from moving into the city in 1920s, into the 1930s as a published poet and the highest paid woman in copy writing for R.H. Macy’s, through her surprise turn as a wife and mother and some not so bright days in the 1950s, to her life in the present day (January 1, 1985). All as she winds through the streets of New York. What takes a moment to understand, is that Lillian Boxfish is essentially New York. The book is both a love letter to the deeply strong, and endlessly witty woman in the title and the city that is such a part of her. Both are so full of life, but not without their dark moments.

While Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk is written well and is engaging, there’s really no other book like it, it's almost too engaging. It took several sittings and wasn’t a light or fluffy book. I had to be fully present while reading it and more than once I had to flip back a page and reread it. While that isn’t a bad thing, it changed the way I read the book and meant a longer time commitment than lighter fare would have. Still, I’d wholeheartedly recommend it.

This book is such a witty delight full of insights into human nature, the human spirit and the city of New York today and in the past. The narrator is an 85 or actually 86 year old woman (she doesn’t usually share her actual age as she prefers to pretend she was born in 1900 rather than 1899) who, like most of her age, shares it as she sees it. Reading this book is like sitting down with your favorite, clever, extroverted aunt and listening to her share her favorite stories as she reminisces about yesterday and her lifelong experiences - mostly humorous but also moments of stark reality.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an early release of this book.