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Indlæser... Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk: A Novel (original 2017; udgave 2017)af Kathleen Rooney (Forfatter)
Work InformationLillian Boxfish Takes a Walk af Kathleen Rooney (2017)
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Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. More of a 3.5? Very mixed feelings here. I loved the concept and found the writing quite nice but I couldn't warm up at all to the character Lillian. When I made an effort to think of her as Mary Berry from the Great British Baking Show the book worked better for me but that took considerable effort and more often than not I found myself feeling irritated by her attitude. She seemed tremendously full of herself and unlike the people she stumbles upon on New Year's Eve walk I didn't find her at all charming or likable. Reading the notes at the end and realizing that Lillian is based on a real woman was interesting to me. I did not appreciate the poetry or the ads that were sprinkled throughout the book but they bothered me less knowing they were the actual work of Margaret Fishback - the "real" Lillian. I almost wanted to shelve this one on my GR Memoirs shelf, it seems so real! Lillian's voice is so true and her personality so delightful that as I read it I had to keep reminding myself that she was fictional. As it turns out, she and her story were based on a real person, whose archive the author mined for the story. She was well captured!
Today, Chicago has its own literary flâneuse, Kathleen Rooney. Her new novel, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, is about an elderly woman who walks from midtown to downtown Manhattan and back on New Year’s Eve, 1984. But Lillian Boxfish isnt just any elderly woman, she’s a fictional version of Margaret Fishback, the real-life female Don Draper of 1940s advertising and an accomplished poet. And Rooney isn’t just any writer: she walks hundreds of miles every year, exploring cities on foot. The book bounces around the 20th century and tackles themes of work, time, motherhood, and what it means to be truly in love with a city. It’s one of my all-time favorite New York novels, right up there with Winter’s Tale, Invisible Man, and The Golem and the Jinni. I recently spoke with Rooney about walking, writing, Fishback, New York, and Chicago. HæderspriserDistinctionsNotable Lists
"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"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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I was more than surprised to learn that author Kathleen Rooney was neither old by any stretch, thirty-something young, nor she did write this novel based on her own grandmother's or any other elderly female's perspective within Ms. Rooney's life; she just made it up. Brava!
It's New Year's Eve, and Ms. Boxfish takes a walk, in the literal sense of the word. That's it. But she narrates as she travels through New York City, and we learn snippets of her life; where she worked, who she loved, her child, her ups, and her most significant downs. As the once most highly paid advertising female, Ms. Boxfish is quick, witty, well-mannered, and biting; my kind of gal. During her walk, she also tells of the people she encounters along the way, a security guard, a store clerk, a chauffeur, three would-be muggers, and each adds to her story as she seemingly adds to theirs. It's simply delightful.
If you are looking for an adventurous book, an earth-shattering ending, or ah-ha revelation, you will not find it here - what you will find is a proficient, unique, and charming story. After reading this, I aspire to be like Lillian Boxfish in thirty years. ( )