Have you ever traveled a path from your past and shouted out all the locations as you recognize them? Maybe taken your children or new significant other to see the haunts of your childhood?
That is how we spend the last night of 1984. Strolling along the streets of Manhattan, NYC with Lillian Boxfish, as she reminisces in her mind about her life, purposely wandering by all the important locations that led her to be the woman she is on this New Year's Eve.
Like women of her generation, she has fudged her age, so as the year rolls over she is not admitting to being born before the new century began. She was a feminist and working woman before that became popular in the United States. Lillian came to the big city as an independent, stylish young woman ready to set the city on fire. She had a talent for poetry and clever advertising copy. She landed a job at R. H. Macy's. She became their lead copy editor. Then she fell in love with Max Caputo, the rug buyer for Macy's. They marry and have a child, her son, Johnny. Having to leave work is the breaking point for both her marriage and her metal health.
Now looking back on her life, as she goes about her New Year's Eve routine, she meets old friends along her walk, and runs into a bit of trouble, as she relives the choices she made and the world she has lived in.
This is a sweet story written by Kathleen Rooney which is based on the real life persona of Margaret Fishback, who in the 1930's worked for R.H. Macy and was the highest paid female copywriter in the world. Appearing on the society pages of the NY newspapers, she wrote advertising copy for Macy's and books of poetry and etiquette. Her books are out of print and her story was forgotten. Rooney has brought her story back to life in the character of Lillian Boxfish. Though the clever ad copy is real the conversations and musings of Lillian as she wanders the street of New York, are the imagination of Kathleen Rooney.
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