Written in 1993, The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields is the fictional autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett, whose life story plays out in North America and spans much of the 20th century. The novel claims to be Daisy’s retelling of her life story, but it includes other characters’ voices and points of view, thus satirizing fiction and storytelling itself. By including a family tree and “real” family photographs, the novel explores the difference between reality and fiction, as well as family and ancestry. The Stone Diaries won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1995, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 1993 Governor General’s Award and was nominated for the Booker Prize.

Plot Summary

Although the novel claims to flow chronologically from Daisy’s birth to her death, it jumps around in time and perspective. The novel begins with Daisy’s mother, Mercy Stone, dying during Daisy’s birth in 1905 in Tyndall, Manitoba, Canada. Daisy’s father, Cuyler Goodwill, a stone mason, is devastated and sends newborn Daisy away to live with Clarentine Flett. Clarentine is the Goodwills’ neighbor who has just left her husband, Magnus, to live with her son, Barker, in Winnipeg. Barker is a 33-year-old mild-mannered botany professor. When Daisy is 11 and sick with the measles, he begins to have sexual feelings for her, although he hides them in shame.

In 1916, Clarentine dies after being hit by a cyclist. Cuyler collects Daisy and takes her to Bloomington, Indiana, where he has secured a stonecutting job. Daisy grows up and graduates from college, and then in 1927, she marries Harold Hoad, son of the family whose stonecutting business Cuyler works for. Harold drinks heavily, and on their honeymoon in Paris, Harold drunkenly falls out of a hotel window to his death.

In 1936, Daisy, now a widow, is the talk of the town, and Cuyler has married an Italian woman named Maria. Wanting to escape public scrutiny, Daisy visits her country of birth. While there, she reconnects with Barker, who has romanticized her all this time. They marry and have three children: Alice, Warren, and Joan. Daisy enjoys being a homemaker and especially caring for her garden. When Barker retires, he becomes “Mr. Green Thumb,” a pseudonym he uses while writing a gardening column for a local newspaper.

In 1955, both Cuyler and Barker die. Daisy takes over Barker’s column, becoming “Mrs. Green Thumb.” The children go off to college, and Barker’s niece, Beverly, comes to live with Daisy. Beverly is pregnant out of wedlock, and while she at first wants to give the baby up for adoption, she later decides to keep her and names her Victoria. Both Beverly and Victoria become like daughters to Daisy.

In 1965, Daisy is fired from her newspaper job because a male colleague replaces her. She falls into a deep depression, and we learn each character’s theory for why she is depressed. Some theories include losing her job, her lack of a sex life, a mourning for past potential, loneliness, motherlessness, and rage. Even in the depths of her sorrow, Daisy knows she will soon feel better.

In 1977, Daisy retires to a retirement community in Florida and is curious about her family history, especially that of her father, Cuyler, and her father-in-law, Magnus. Victoria visits her often, and when Victoria is offered a chance to do paleobotany research in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, she takes Daisy with her so they can visit Magnus’s grave. To their surprise, Magnus is alive, 115 years old, and famous for having been able to recite all of Jane Eyre from memory. Eventually, in 1985, Daisy’s health starts to decline. She suffers a heart attack and faces diminishing physical and mental capacity as she convalesces in the hospital.

The novel’s final chapter is Daisy’s attempt to summarize and measure her own life in different written forms: lists of favorite recipes, lists of all her home addresses, the books she owned, the illnesses she suffered from. Facing her imminent death, Daisy tries out different possible inscriptions for her own gravestone and various versions of an obituary, and she imagines how her friends and family might react to her death, still wishing to write her own story.