46 pages • 1 hour read
Kathleen RooneyLillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “A Sandwich at the Mission”
Lillian leaves the Back Porch and hears a rap song that she recognizes coming from a passing car. Rap, she says, strikes her as a “joyful mastery of language” (59), and it troubles her that she has so few acquaintances left in the city with whom she can discuss such things. In her youth, the best new things were jazz and the Lindy Hop, created in Harlem and later appropriated by the mainstream. She thinks this is the natural order of things, as creativity exists on the margins but the middle is where the money is. She knows, having been part of it.
She takes a detour past the Christian Women’s Hotel where she lived when she first moved to the city in 1926, noting its decay.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Fast and Loose”
Lillian lives in the Christian Women’s Hotel in 1926; she and Helen arrive and move in on the same day. They take classes at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and put on plays at the boardinghouse to make extra money to get an apartment. They are putting on Antigone with Lillian in the title role. She notes that each girl has been typecast, with their fellow boarder Ginny in the role of Creon because she always obeys the rules “even if the rules were stupid” (68).
Lillian and Helen charm the strict head of the boarding house, Miss Lockhart, so that they can go on dates with their boyfriends, Abe and Dickie. While they find the men entertaining and enjoy sleeping with them, Lillian and Helen are set against marriage. Lillian knows that she will never marry Dickie, as he is attractive and educated but lacking in ambition. She recalls her years in college and early work at a public relations firm, when she had her first lover and her first job, both of which she quit because she was bored.
Lillian and Helen move into an apartment together. On the night of their housewarming party, Lillian breaks up with Dickie. One day, she receives a letter from Abe urging her to take Dickie back. Another letter from her mother expresses concern that she is not capable of living on her own and supporting herself. She throws both into the trash, feeling free and happy with her choices.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Pearl Anniversary”
Arriving at Grimaldi’s in 1984, Lillian is greeted by its owner and her longtime acquaintance, Alberto. She confesses that she has no appetite but orders a glass of wine, and the two talk about the New Year. Alberto tells her that he is selling the restaurant and moving to Florida, as the business and the city itself are not what they once were.
Lillian feels betrayed and increasingly lonely, as her longtime acquaintances gradually leave the city. She wonders what the new owner will change about the restaurant and whether he’ll add trendy new dishes. Suddenly, Lillian decides to walk to Delmonico’s Restaurant for a steak, hoping that the walk will stimulate her appetite. She says goodnight to Alberto and leaves.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Slambango”
Lillian has only ever eaten at Delmonico’s once. She and Max finalized their divorce there in 1955. As they arrive, Lillian notes the columns, imported from the ruins of Pompeii, and Max remembers visiting the site when they were on their honeymoon but fails to realize the irony of their marriage beginning and ending with symmetry.
She has just gotten out of the hospital but has made him a birthday card with a silly poem inside. Rattled by an uncomfortable discussion about the divorce, she orders her steak medium well when she means medium rare but does not bother to correct it. She thinks how youthful Max appears compared with herself, and she is reminded that she is seven years older than him and 15 years older than Julia.
Lillian picks at her meal, unable to enjoy it, while she and Max discuss the logistics of the divorce. She points out that it was indecent of him to ask her to leave the hospital and fly to Reno to expedite their divorce, which she was unable to do. He says that she has been difficult—“[n]ot the girl I married” (96)—to which Lillian responds tartly that no one remains a girl forever. They argue, and he concedes that Julia is his “mulligan,” or do-over. Realizing that they have been raising their voices, Lillian leaves Max to pay the bill and walks out.
She recalls the night that Max’s affair with Julia became public knowledge, though she had secretly known about it. A friend of Max’s got drunk at a party and asked if they could see Julia because she was so much fun. The evening carried on awkwardly, and Max tried to apologize to Lillian, who agreed to try to work things out even though she knew that the end was inevitable.
Chapters 6-9 Analysis
These chapters highlight The Infinite Possibilities of New York City, using irony and the motif of opposites to build this theme and develop Lillian’s characterization. Lillian loves the high buildings of the city in contrast with the low apartment in which she lives, and she appreciates both high and low art, as demonstrated by the juxtaposition of her production of Antigone with her love of rap.
Further emphasizing the setting, Rooney explores Lillian’s position as an elderly white woman in New York. Lillian’s reflections on rap bring her to the Lindy Hop and jazz, and she thinks about cultural appropriation. She notes that when white people became famous for a dance created by Black people, “it shored up barriers that were already there, of which color was only the most obvious” (60). She considers her own role in this, noting that new things “pop up at the edges, but the middle’s where the money is. [...] And now here I am, an old white lady in a fur coat on a Murray Hill sidewalk, eavesdropping on passersby, wondering what I’m missing” (60). This conveys the economic conditions of the city and its possibilities with irony; it contains more possibilities for wealthy, white people. However, Lillian’s age reduces this sense of possibility for her.
Lillian’s sense of nostalgia underpins the novel’s flashback structure. Her flashback to the production of Antigone at the Christian Women’s Hotel develops her role as a picaro in the picaresque novel, as she appreciates the play for its rebelliousness and draws firm distinctions between herself and her rule-following roommate, Ginny, who is “obedient to rules even if the rules [are] stupid. Full, too, of rules of her own imposition” (68). Lillian abhors politeness for the sake of unthinking conformity and values civility for the sake of making life easier and kinder. She brings this approach to all her relationships in the novel, from her dalliance with Dickie to her brief conversation with Alberto at Grimaldi’s, and even to her divorce discussion with Max.
Lillian’s wry observation that “[w]hat’s bad in a sweetheart becomes unbearable in a husband” proves ironically prescient during her lunch with Max at Delmonico’s (75). Rooney introduces Max in “Slambango,” Lillian gives few hints about what might have first drawn her to him, saying that she still loved him, “though he had proven himself by that point to be quite an ass, and callous” (90). Throughout the chapter, she offers hints about what happened between them without clarifying key details; her references to her honeymoon, to feeling ruined, to being hospitalized, and to Max’s public and humiliating affair are intended to build suspense and evoke sympathy.
