Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

Once the highest paid female copywriter in the country, Lillian (Lily to her friends, Lils to her faithless mate) is intelligent, witty, and rather wonderful. On this New Year's Eve of 1984, at 85 years of age, she strolls the streets of her Manhattan, recalling what it used to be like; how she made her mark on the world as a copywriter for Macy's and writer of best-selling Dorothy Parker-like books of verse; how she fell like a boatload of bananas for a handsome heel; and how she became a loving if uneager mother. She has written well and been well paid, fought for the rights of women in the workplace, has known too much drink and her share of despair. But she survives. While her frequent perambulations reveal a New York that has changed irrevocably, Lillian lives with the hope that her greatest love, the city, will rise again. There is a melancholy behind her words, and reader Xe Sands voices poignancy, old age, wit, and youthful snark beautifully, although with a few mispronunciations