Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

Rooney, Kathleen

ISBN 10: 1427282374 ISBN 13: 9781427282378

Publisher: Macmillan Audio, 2017

Synopsis

"Between author Rooney's story and narrator Xe Sands's craftsmanship, this Walk will sweep listeners off their feet...Through Sands we feel the force of Lillian's personality — with all its drive, wit, and grace — as well as the counterforces that want to constrain it." — AudioFile Magazine

Fall 2016 Library Journal Editors' Pick

“In my reckless and undiscouraged youth,” Lillian Boxfish writes, “I worked in a walnut-paneled office thirteen floors above West Thirty-Fifth Street...”

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.

About this title

Review

'Extraordinary ... hilarious ... Elegantly written, Rooney creates a glorious paean to a distant literary life and time – and an unabashed celebration of human connections that bridge past and future.' (Publishers Weekly)

'A lively, fictionalized version of Fishback's story ... [with] plenty of charm.' (Kirkus Reviews)

'Effervescent with verve, wit, and heart, Rooney’s nimble novel celebrates insouciance, creativity, chance, and valor.' (Booklist)

Book Description

It's the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1427282374
• ISBN 13: 9781427282378
• Binding: Audio CD