The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin
Marianne Cronin’s The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot (Harper Perennial) relates the enchanting story of a transformative friendship between seventeen-year-old Lenni Petterson and eighty-three years young Margot Macrae James, whose combined ages, they come to realize, add up to 100. Together, they will create a lasting legacy: a lifetime of stories told through 100 paintings and a combination of energy bright enough to light the sky.
Highly intelligent Lenni resides in Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital in a bed surrounded by dull, green curtains in the ward for “life-limited” patients, a euphemism for the terminally ill. It is an inhospitable environment, always cold, noisy and brightly lit, and she’s somewhat restricted in her mobility both by a permanent IV drip and by Nuse Jacky, a woman lacking warmth and empathy and who seems to prefer patients who get on with the business of dying. Adhering unwaveringly to bureaucratic regulations, the charge nurse thwarts Lenni’s efforts to explore the hospital alone on foot. So, bereft of visitors, she spends her days in vivid and richly imagined daydreams or observing her fellow patients.
ART THERAPY LEADS TO UNFORGETTABLE FRIENDSHIP
The hospital’s efforts to provide spartan palliative care include its small chapel, a counseling service for young “life-limited” patients and, thanks to recently acquired grant funding, a new art therapy program, which leads Lenni to a chance encounter with Margot, a fruitcake-munching, petite, elderly rebel in purple pajamas. As their friendship deepens, the two plan to create 100 paintings that visually showcase their life stories. Lenni becomes the eager biographer of Margot, coaxing the elder woman to share her stories as she paints and documenting them all late into the night, long after the art sessions have ended.
When Margot’s life story is written out in Lenni’s notebook, it describes a life lived in full, something Lenni will not share. Lenni’s life has been circumscribed — it is finite where Margot’s is infinite. Yet together, illustrated in paintings, life is celebrated, and within her short time remaining, Lenni is able to blossom, form meaningful friendships and leave her mark on the world.
The story unfolds through the alternating perspectives of Lenni and Margot, but as in improv or sketch comedy, Cronin allows her readers to use their imaginations. Secondary characters are often described through nicknames or job titles — the red-haired nurse, the new nurse, Pete the Porter, Sunil the orderly, the Boss, the Temp and Pippa the art teacher. Although the exact nature of Lenni’s parental arrangement, her terminal disease and Margot’s infirmity is never clearly spelled out, readers can infer this on their own. Besides, those details are secondary to the dynamics of the relationships at the book’s center.
CRONIN LENDS HER ZEST FOR LIFE TO THIS INCREDIBLE DEBUT
It’s hard to believe The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot is a debut novel. Cronin has stated that Lenni came to her “as a fully formed voice in her head,” which was quite the distraction as she was then writing her Master’s thesis in Applied Linguistics. It took her seven years to complete the book during which time she also earned a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham. It may be academia’s loss as Cronin now balances writing with performing improv near her West Midlands residence. Her spontaneity, quirky sense of humor and zest for life has been poured into this bittersweet yet uplifting tale of friendship.
Cronin’s novel is ideally suited for book club discussions. Anyone who enjoyed A Man Called Ove or Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine will also love this book. Clearly, early readers have embraced Lenni and Margot as it will soon be published in 20 languages and has already been optioned as a feature film. My immediate reaction to this soul-satisfying novel is the desire to tell everyone, “Read this, you will love it.” I finished it in a flood of happy tears and immediately wished to read it again.
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot is emphatically not a tragedy. It is a brilliantly executed, life-affirming gossamer work filled with humor, hope, tenderness and joy.
