Published in 2021, Marianne Cronin’s The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot is an adult realistic fiction novel. Two women with terminal conditions—17-year-old Lenni and 83-year-old Margot—become close friends and decide to create 100 paintings, one for each year of their lives. The novel won an Alex Award in 2022 and explores themes of friendship, stories, and forgiveness. The story alternates between Lenni’s and Margot’s viewpoints and uses flashbacks to explore their memories.

Citations in this guide refer to the 2021 HarperCollins eBook edition.

Content Warning: This guide references alcohol addiction, animal abuse, and anti-gay language, which feature in the novel.

Plot Summary

The 17-year-old Lenni Pettersson and the 83-year-old Margot Macrae are two women whose lives become intimately intertwined while both are patients residing at Royal Princess Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland in 2014. The novel unfolds as they share the stories of their lives with each other and embark on a joint art project to reflect their life experiences as their days wind down.

When Margot was young, her father was deployed in World War II, and her domineering grandmother moved in with Margot and her mother. Margot’s father survived the war but had post-traumatic stress disorder. Margot married a young man named Johnny when she was 20. Their son, Davey, died in infancy, and Johnny left Margot soon afterward. Margot moved to London, England, and fell in love with a free-spirited woman named Meena Star. Although Meena reciprocated Margot’s feelings, she was unable to voice them at the time. At age 40, Margot moved to the English countryside. While driving one night, she nearly hit a man stargazing in the middle of the road. The astronomer, a man named Humphrey James, soon became her closest friend, and they married when she was 48. Meena attended the wedding, and Margot briefly considered running away with her. Margot invited Meena to stay with her and Humphrey, but Meena declined and moved to Vietnam. When Margot was 66, Humphrey began showing signs of Alzheimer’s. He made Margot promise to stop visiting him once he forgot who she was. During his final conversation with her, he encouraged her to reconnect with Meena. With Humphrey’s blessing, Margot spent a few months in Vietnam with Meena, who finally confessed her love to Margot. Margot eventually returned to Scotland. At 83, she had surgery and has been hospitalized for a heart condition at Princess Royal Hospital.

Lenni Pettersson is a Swedish girl living with a terminal condition at the hospital. When she was five, her mother began showing signs of a mental health condition. Lenni and her parents moved to Scotland when she was seven. After her parents divorced, she initially lived with her mother. When Lenni was 15, her mother suddenly decided to return to Sweden; she took Lenni to her father and left without saying goodbye. In secondary school, Lenni struggled to make friends among her peers. At age 16, she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Not wanting her father to endure seeing her health decline, she made him promise to stop visiting her. Now 17, Lenni lives in the May Ward of the Princess Royal Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland. She befriends Arthur, the hospital chaplain, and the two have many conversations about life and religion. Lenni sees Margot sneak an envelope out of a recycling bin, and she distracts the head nurse so that Margot can make a clean getaway. Lenni and Margot meet again in the hospital’s art therapy room. Lenni suggests that they create 100 paintings, one for each year of their combined lives, and Margot enthusiastically agrees.

As they paint the pictures, Margot and Lenni tell one another their life stories. The strength of their friendship and their shared goal inspire other people at the hospital, including the art teacher and her other students. After Margot and Lenni have completed all 100 paintings, Margot surprises Lenni with a birthday party, saying that they’re now 100 years old. The next day, Lenni passes away peacefully in her sleep with Margot and Father Arthur by her side. Margot confides to Father Arthur that the envelope Lenni helped her rescue during their first meeting was a letter from Meena asking Margot to marry her. Father Arthur surprises Margot by encouraging her to be with the woman she loves. As Margot prepares for another major surgery at the end of the novel, she feels unafraid. She knows that if she survives, she’ll soon be with her soulmate, and if not, she’ll join her dearest friend, Lenni.