The Stone Diaries
Carol Shields · 1935–2003 · Canada / United States
Why it matters
An ordinary Canadian woman's entire life (birth, marriages, motherhood, old age) is narrated as though it were an epic, complete with invented photographs and obituaries. Shields's Pulitzer winner insists a woman's unremarkable life deserves fiction's full architecture.
At a glance
family sagapsychological novel
Difficulty 5/10medium pace361 pagesA fragmented, documentary structure narrates one life from odd, oblique angles.
Deep dive
A fake documentary of an invented life, and why its narrator can't be trusted to know her own story.
