The novel is mainly a series of statements made in the first person; the protagonist is a woman named Kate who believes herself to be the last human on earth.

Though Markson's original manuscript was rejected fifty-four times,[1] the book, when finally published in 1988 by Dalkey Archive Press, was met with critical acclaim.

A decade later, David Foster Wallace described it as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country" in an article for Salon entitled "Five direly underappreciated U.S. novels >1960.

[4] Many of these are used to play with the themes, particularly language and memory, and draw parallels between the narrator, Kate, and figures from other works, most notably Helen of Troy.

The faultiness of memory plays a large part throughout the novel, as the narrator constantly gets facts wrong, sometimes correcting herself, other times contradicting herself.