Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a 'Former Person.' He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity. There is plenty of charm and occasional poignance here even if the novel makes you long for a proper biography of the real woman who inspired it. And Lillian’s dialogue is sometimes too arch, too written, to be credible. While the book effectively underscores the fierce struggles of career women like Lillian in a pre-feminist time, it can also feel schematic. But the chance encounters lift her spirits, helping her come to terms with her past. The city is in decline-the Subway Vigilante is on the loose-which Lillian seems to equate with her own fall from grace. An old woman now, she roams the streets of Manhattan alone, passing landmarks public as well as private and befriending several New York characters (all too benevolent to be believed) along the way. Intercut with this narrative is the more fanciful story of Lillian’s adventures on New Year’s Eve 1984. The marriage eventually fractures, and Lillian suffers a mental breakdown. They marry, but when she becomes pregnant with their son, Johnny, she's forced to quit her job-maternity leave being a thing of the future. Though a self-styled “scoffer at love,” Lillian falls hard for Max Caputo, the head rug buyer at Macy’s. Macy’s, where she turns out witty rhymes that promote the department store on her own, she writes light verse, eventually published in several volumes. A smart, stylish, independent young woman, she lands a job at R.H. Rooney’s Lillian Boxfish comes to Manhattan in 1926 to make her mark.

Rooney ( O, Democracy!, 2014, etc.) has written a lively, fictionalized version of Fishback’s story, drawing on real milestones but imagining her subject’s inner life. A poet and writer of clever, innovative ad copy, Margaret Fishback was admired in her time-the pre– Mad Men era-but is mostly forgotten now.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney