Author Kathleen Rooney at Lake Forest Book Store

Description

Kathleen Rooney, author of "Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk" (St. Martin's Press $25.99) Register at Lake Forest Book Store 847-234-4420 She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macy's to become the highest paid advertising woman in the country. It was a job that, she says, in some ways saved my life, and in other ways ruined it. Now it's the last night of 1984 and Lillian, 85 years old but just as sharp and savvy as ever, is on her way to a party. On a walk that takes her over 10 miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be, while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak, illuminating all the ways New York has changed and has not. Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, an indie nonprofit publisher, and lives in Chicago, where she appeared on New City Lit's list of "Lit 50 15: Who Really Books in Chicago." Her works include poetry and nonfiction, as well as the novel "O, Democracy!"(2014). Her art-modeling memoir "Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object" was published by University of Arkansas Press (2009). "Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America" (University of Arkansas, 2005) was her first book.