According To Queeney
by Beryl Bainbridge
Nomination: Booker Longlist 2001
Date Read: June 27, 2021
This historical novel focuses on the personage of Samuel Johnson, famous in real life for the precursor to the Oxford English Dictionary, a critic, a poet and an intellectual. We experience his assets and weaknesses through the eyes of Queeney, the daughter of his benefactors, Henry and Hester Thrale.
A well-to-do family, the Thrale’s hosted Johnson for the last twenty years of his life, managing his living arrangements, travel and social calls. History has noted his “jerky” and erratic movements which modern medicine would most likely diagnose as Tourette’s Syndrome. During the last years of his life living with the Thrales, Johnson became increasingly drawn to Mrs. Thrale and upon the death of her husband Henry, had hoped to take his place as her husband. He was devastated when she secretly married the musician Mr. Piozzi.
While you couldn’t construe this novel as “action packed,” Bainbridge does provide a remarkable glimpse into the lives of the privileged who are at their leisure to entertain, travel and to contemplate and support the Arts. The reader is also privy to the strange, yet normal practices of the times related to healthcare, entertainment, and the managing of households and servants.
The experiences and perceptions of Johnson are corrected through chapter-ending letters Queeney responds to, setting the record straight on what she witnessed growing up with Johnson in the house – his demeanor, his flirtations with Queeney’s mother, his ill-health, his regular need for praise and attention and sexual appetites.
Bainbridge is a marvelous storyteller and I found myself having compassion and concern for Johnson, an otherwise rough and decrepit figure.
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