She’s even outlived her career, though it still shapes how she perceives the world around her: When we meet Lilian at eighty-five, she has outlived her friends, colleagues, and her ex-husband. Their union produced Gian, their only child, and he and his family are the remaining residents of Lillian’s heart. Lillian made her fortune as a poetess who chided artificial love, and she was almost undone by the cracks in the love from the one man she allowed a chance–Max, her ex-husband. Never short on money, wit, or couplets, Lillian walks the streets of New York confidently as she contemplates the city’s changes over the years and how her connection to the urban landscape has nearly outlasted all of her other relationships. Macy’s, which would ultimately define her career and lifestyle and would earn her the title of highest-paid woman in advertising. We first meet her when she’s young and considering an advertisement for a job at R. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk tells the story of a woman on the eve of a new year and the eve of a new chapter of her life. And Lillian Boxfish, the star of Kathleen Rooney’s latest novel, strolls through it all, reminding us of what came before and after. Neighborhood borders shift as new skyscrapers, no longer awe-inspiring, block views and change the city’s skyline. HIV and AIDS are the subject of conversations at parties and hospital bedsides. Rap music rides the airwaves out of car windows and into the New York night.
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