According to Queeney

Samuel Johnson is old and in poor health, and the friends he has known for decades are dying around him. The novel follows his last years in the late 18th century, when time is the one thing he cannot out-argue.

His anchor is the household of Hester Thrale. Her family gives him steady warmth, and her daughter Queeney, young at the time, watches him closely. Much of the story is told through her eyes.

Bainbridge writes in a precise, restrained style. She fills the pages with the texture of literary life in Johnson's London, and the tone stays quiet, melancholic and reflective rather than eventful. Johnson himself has already given a great deal to his craft, and he carries that fact with a quiet dignity.

The book closes with a short run of correspondence. Years after Johnson has died, Queeney writes to her friend Laetitia Hawkins and looks back on what she remembers of him and of the time that has gone by since.

It is historical literary fiction, and it was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Readers get a slow, reflective book about memory and ageing, with little in the way of plot.