Carol Shields's 1993 novel "The Stone Diaries" is about the life of Daisy Goodwill Flett and of the people around her.

Shields begins with the story of the courtship of Daisy's parents. Cuyler Goodwill fell in love with the obese orphan Mercy Stone, who died giving birth to Daisy. Daisy's youth is filled with trauma. A neighbor ("Aunt Clarentine") raises Daisy until her death. Clarentine's son, Barker, cannot care for her, so she moves to Indiana to live with her birth father before marrying Harold Hoad, an alcoholic who falls to his drunken death on the couple's honeymoon. Shortly afterward, she marries the much older Barker and moves to Ottawa, where she raises their three children.

Each chapter of "The Stone Diaries" describes a part of Daisy's life: Birth, Childhood, Marriage, Love, Motherhood, Work, Sorrow, Ease, Illness and Decline, and Death. Years - sometimes decades - pass between chapters. The author tells Daisy's story from the edges of her life.

Daisy's story is not heroic. She is everywoman, dealing with what life offers her. It is a saga that takes the reader from rural western Canada to an Indiana college town, then to the suburbs of Ottawa, and finally to a retirement in Florida.

The word "Diaries" in the book's title is misleading. The author frequently shifts from the third to the first person, often allowing others to tell Daisy's story. We hear about Daisy's career as a newspaper columnist through letters from her publisher and her readers. When she falls into depression after a rival, we learn the details through the voices of Daisy's friends and family speculating on the cause of her depression.

Shields shows us how people change throughout their lives. The scope of time allows us to see Daisy's growth from an insecure girl to a devoted wife and mother to a career woman through her struggles with and recovery from depression. But many of the peripheral characters also grow as they age.

"The Stone Diaries" is a touching story of a woman's life told from many points of view. It is about dealing with loneliness and about personal growth.