Kathleen Rooney (2017)
Genre
Literary Fiction / Historical Fiction
Reading Time
360 min
Key Themes
See below
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On New Year's Eve, 1984, an 85-year-old former advertising executive walks across Manhattan, her journey reflecting a lifetime of personal triumphs, heartbreaks, and the city's changing history.
On December 31, 1984, Lillian Boxfish, an 85-year-old living on the Upper East Side, decides to walk from her apartment to a New Year's Eve party in the West Village. She dresses carefully and begins her walk into the cold Manhattan night. As she starts, Lillian thinks about her long life and her past advertising career, especially her time at R.H. Macy & Co. in the 1930s. The city is ready for the holiday, but also feels tense because of recent events, like the subway vigilante incident.
As Lillian walks down Madison Avenue, she passes many advertising agencies, which bring back memories of her career. She recalls her early days, her quick rise, and her part in creating memorable campaigns, particularly for Macy's. She was once the highest-paid advertising woman in America. Her walk includes meetings with various city people: a young woman with a stroller, a street vendor, and a group of young men. These brief encounters let Lillian observe the changing city and its people, often leading to more thoughts about her own past and how society has changed.
Lillian stops at a bar for a drink, a rare treat that gives her a moment to rest and observe. She has a short, witty conversation with the bartender. While she sips her drink, she thinks about her marriage to David, a fellow creative she met in advertising. She remembers the excitement of their early relationship, the difficulty of balancing her career with marriage and motherhood, and their eventual divorce. She thinks about the pressure on women of her generation to choose between a career and family, a choice that greatly affected her life.
Continuing through Midtown, Lillian notices the changing city. She sees new skyscrapers next to older buildings, showing Manhattan's constant change. She recalls specific landmarks and their history, often comparing the present to her memories. She meets a homeless man, which makes her feel empathy and think about the city's less glamorous side. Her thoughts mix personal stories with broader social comments, covering everything from fashion to economic shifts, as she moves towards her destination.
As Lillian walks, her thoughts turn to her son, David Jr. She remembers his birth, the joys and difficulties of motherhood, and the estrangement that has left a void in her life. She deals with guilt and regret, wondering if her career choices caused the distance between them. This painful memory shows the sacrifices she made and the personal cost of her ambition. She wishes for reconciliation, but time and their different paths have created a gap that seems hard to close, adding sadness to her otherwise lively walk.
Throughout her walk, Lillian is aware of the city's tension around the recent subway vigilante incident, where a man shot four alleged muggers. News reports and public discussions about the event are everywhere. Lillian thinks about justice, law, and order, and how people reacted to such acts of self-appointed justice. While she does not support violence, she understands the fear that can make people take extreme actions. This social background highlights the grittier, more anxious side of the Manhattan she is walking through on New Year's Eve.
Lillian remembers a time when she had a mental health breakdown, which led to a stay in a psychiatric facility. She recounts what caused her breakdown, including career pressures, her troubled marriage, and social expectations. She describes her recovery, the therapy, and the slow process of rebuilding her life. This period was a turning point, making her face her vulnerabilities and redefine herself outside of her professional and domestic roles. Her strength in overcoming this challenge shows her strong character.
As Lillian reaches Greenwich Village, she notices its distinct bohemian feel. She remembers her younger days, when she spent time in the Village, drawn to its artistic and intellectual energy. She thinks about her own unfulfilled artistic dreams, especially her love for poetry, which she often put into her advertising copy. She observes the diverse crowd, from artists to long-time residents, and appreciates the neighborhood's lasting spirit of individuality and creativity. This part shows Lillian's inner artist, which, though used in advertising, always wanted pure expression.
Finally, Lillian arrives at the New Year's Eve party hosted by her former colleague and friend, David Jr.'s godfather. The party has a mix of familiar faces and younger people. She is greeted warmly but also feels a bit out of place, aware of how much has changed since her best years. She watches the younger guests, their conversations, and their hopes for the future. Despite the passing of time, Lillian finds comfort in the friendship and the shared experience of starting a new year, thinking about the human need for connection.
As the countdown begins and midnight strikes, Lillian joins the New Year's Eve celebrations. She thinks about the journey she just completed, both physically across Manhattan and through her memories. The walk has been a deep experience, letting her come to terms with her past, acknowledge her present, and look to the future with peace. She feels a renewed sense of self, a validation of her unique life and contributions. The novel ends with Lillian embracing the possibilities of the new year, still sharp, witty, and strong.
The Protagonist
Lillian begins her journey grappling with past regrets and the feeling of being an anachronism, but through her walk and reflections, she achieves a profound sense of self-acceptance and peace.
The Supporting
Not a personal arc, but his memory serves to highlight Lillian's evolving understanding of her past relationships.
The Supporting
His arc is largely unseen, but his memory pushes Lillian to confront her maternal regrets.
The Mentioned
No specific arc, but he contributes to Lillian's positive interactions on her journey.
The Mentioned
No specific arc, serves as a point of positive interaction.
The Mentioned
No personal arc, but his actions shape the novel's historical context and thematic concerns.
The novel is full of the theme of memory, as Lillian's walk brings up many recollections spanning decades. Her mind easily moves between 1984 and her youth in the Jazz Age, her career in the 1930s, and her personal struggles later on. This constant mix of past and present shows how memory shapes identity and understanding. Scenes like her passing Madison Avenue and remembering her advertising successes, or recalling her son's birth, show how the past is not just gone but continually reinterpreted through the present, deepening her view of life.
“What good was memory if it couldn't be trusted to deliver the truth?”
Manhattan is a main character, and the novel explores its continuous change. Lillian, having lived in the city for over eight decades, sees the big changes in its buildings, social structure, and culture. She compares the gleaming skyscrapers of 1984 with the familiar landmarks of her youth, noting new subcultures like hip-hop and the worries brought by crime and the AIDS epidemic. Her journey from the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village shows the city's different neighborhoods and how each holds its own history, reflecting broader changes in American society from the Jazz Age to the mid-1980s.
“The city was always changing, always shedding its skin, but some things remained, like the stubborn pulse of life beneath it all.”
Lillian Boxfish's life story explores female ambition in a time when women's roles were mostly in the home. Her career as a highly paid advertising executive challenged social norms. The novel looks at the personal sacrifices she made, such as the strain on her marriage and her relationship with her son, to follow her professional dreams. Her thoughts on her mental breakdown further show the great pressure she faced to balance her career with the expectations of being a wife and mother. This highlights the ongoing struggle for women to achieve both professional success and personal satisfaction.
“She had wanted everything: a career, a husband, a child. But sometimes, wanting everything meant having to choose.”
Despite many difficulties—a tough divorce, a serious mental health crisis, and being separated from her son—Lillian Boxfish shows great strength. Her decision to take a long walk across Manhattan on New Year's Eve, at 85, is an act of defiance against the limits of age and past hardships. Her journey through memories lets her process and accept her past, showing her ability to reflect and grow. Her witty comments and lasting curiosity about the world, even through personal pain, highlight the human spirit's strength to adapt, endure, and find meaning in a long and complex life.
“To be eighty-five was to be a survivor, a witness, a testament to time's relentless march.”
During her walk, Lillian has many brief but meaningful interactions with strangers: a friendly bartender, a helpful security guard, a kind store clerk. These short connections emphasize the theme of community within a large, anonymous city. These moments of shared humanity, often marked by unexpected kindness or witty talk, give Lillian a sense of belonging and confirm her belief in people's good nature. They show how even in a busy city, individuals can find common ground and offer grace to each other, improving the urban experience.
“A city was made of millions of stories, and sometimes, for a moment, they intertwined.”
The narrative flows through Lillian's unfiltered thoughts and memories.
The novel primarily employs a stream-of-consciousness narrative, allowing readers direct access to Lillian Boxfish's thoughts, observations, and memories as she walks. This device blurs the lines between present action and past recollection, creating a rich, layered reading experience. It enables the author to seamlessly weave together Lillian's personal history, reflections on societal changes, and witty commentary on her immediate surroundings, mimicking the organic flow of human thought. This technique is crucial for developing Lillian's complex character and exploring the themes of memory and the passage of time.
Lillian's physical walk across Manhattan symbolizes her life's journey and self-discovery.
Lillian's spontaneous decision to walk across Manhattan on New Year's Eve serves as a powerful metaphor for her entire life's journey. Each street, neighborhood, and encounter along her physical path triggers memories and reflections, allowing her to revisit significant moments of her past, confront regrets, and appreciate her achievements. The act of walking itself represents her resilience, independence, and determination. By the end of her journey, she has not only traversed the city but also completed a profound internal pilgrimage, leading to a deeper understanding and acceptance of herself and her life story.
References to real historical events and cultural shifts anchor the story in time.
The novel is rich with historical allusions and cultural context, grounding Lillian's personal narrative within broader American history. References to the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, the rise of advertising, the onset of the AIDS epidemic, and the 1984 subway vigilante incident (Bernard Goetz) provide a vivid backdrop for Lillian's life. These details not only establish the time periods but also inform Lillian's character and experiences, allowing the author to explore themes of social change, evolving gender roles, and the impact of historical events on individual lives. This device enhances the novel's historical fiction aspect.
Brief interactions with younger characters highlight generational differences and commonalities.
Throughout her walk, Lillian encounters numerous younger individuals—bartenders, security guards, passersby—who represent different generations. These brief interactions, often involving witty banter or mutual observation, serve to highlight both the differences in experience and perspective between generations, as well as the enduring commonalities of human connection. These encounters allow Lillian to reflect on how much the world has changed since her youth, but also to find moments of understanding and shared humanity, reinforcing her belief in the kindness of strangers and the continuous flow of life across ages.
“Lillian Boxfish, a woman of sixty-two years and in possession of a formidable vocabulary, was walking down Madison Avenue, minding her own business, which was the business of remembering her own life.”
— Opening lines, introducing Lillian and her habit of reflection.
“There was a time, not so long ago, when she'd been a force of nature, a hurricane in a hat, a whirlwind of words.”
— Lillian reflecting on her past career as a copywriter for Macy's.
“The city was a living, breathing thing, a vast, complicated organism, and she was just one tiny, insignificant cell in its enormous body. And yet, she was also the brain, the heart, the very soul of it.”
— Lillian's complex relationship with New York City.
“A good sentence, she believed, was a small miracle. It could take you places you'd never been, show you things you'd never seen, make you feel things you'd never felt.”
— Lillian's philosophy on the power of language.
“She had always loved words, the way they fit together, the way they could be arranged to create something new, something beautiful, something true.”
— Lillian's lifelong passion for words and their construction.
“To be forgotten, she thought, was a kind of death. A quieter, more insidious death than the one that stopped your heart, but a death nonetheless.”
— Lillian contemplating the fear of being forgotten as she ages.
“The past was a stubborn thing. It clung to you, no matter how hard you tried to shake it off. It whispered in your ear, reminded you of all the things you'd done, all the things you hadn't.”
— Lillian grappling with memories and regrets during her walk.
“Life was a series of adjustments, a constant recalibration. You learned to live with what you had, to make the best of it, to find joy where you could.”
— Lillian's pragmatic outlook on life's challenges.
“Sometimes, she thought, the greatest adventures were the ones you took inside your own head.”
— Lillian reflecting on the richness of her inner life and imagination.
“There was a certain satisfaction in knowing you'd done your best, even if your best wasn't always enough.”
— Lillian's reflections on her career and personal efforts.
“People always wanted to know what you did, as if your occupation defined your entire existence. But what about all the things you thought, all the things you felt, all the things you dreamed?”
— Lillian questioning societal emphasis on career over inner life.
“The world was full of stories, if you only knew how to listen. And every person, every street, every building had a story to tell.”
— Lillian's observation about the narratives embedded in her surroundings.
“It was a strange thing, this business of getting old. You still felt like yourself inside, but the world treated you differently, as if you were suddenly made of porcelain.”
— Lillian's experience of the physical and social aspects of aging.
“A walk, she decided, was more than just putting one foot in front of the other. It was an act of discovery, a journey through time and memory, a conversation with the world.”
— Lillian's ultimate realization about the significance of her walk.
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