The Stone Diaries

The Stone Diaries is a 1993 award winning novel by Carol Shields.

It is the fictional autobiography about the life of Daisy Goodwill Flett, a seemingly ordinary woman whose life is marked by death and loss from the beginning, when her mother dies during childbirth. Through marriage and motherhood, Daisy struggles to find contentment, never truly understanding her life's true purpose.

The book's title may have been inspired by Pat Lowther's poetry collection A Stone Diary (1977). Lowther's murder in 1975 was the inspiration for Shields' earlier novel Swann: A Mystery (1987).

Part of the setting for the book is the historic Vinegar Hill neighborhood of Bloomington, Indiana