![]() ![]() Its gesture at navigational accuracy gives the novel an interactive quality that compels readers to extend Lillian’s knowledge of the city, to discover what has become of the landmarks of Lillian’s 1984 journey. The map, which seems innocuous enough, is an important orienting device for the narrative. ![]() On her walk, she reflects on the changing city, her career (successful), and her marriage (unsuccessful).ġ0.4 miles, you ask? That’s what the map on the inside cover says. The Oreo, which ruined her appetite and thus her plans for an early dinner at Grimaldi’s, sets Lillian off on a 10.4-mile odyssey from 36 th St. The factory bears the mark of Lillian’s nemesis: the Oreo cookie, a half a package of which Lillian accidentally scarfed while talking to her son on the phone. She’s friends with a young photographer who lives in a former cookie factory that will eventually play underworld to Lillian’s mock-heroic journey through Manhattan on New Year’s Eve, 1984. ![]() She is both elegant and a voice of the people, as at ease with bartenders and security guards as she is with the owner of that old Italian place around the corner. She appreciates rap (more on that below). A poet who used to be the highest-paid adwoman in the business, Lillian hates the suburbs, has hated them her whole life, which has spanned the first eighty-four years of the twentieth century. Lillian Boxfish is pretty hip for an old lady in a mink coat. ![]()
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