The Stone Diaries is a complex novel with much to mull over even after the last page is read. As a collaboration between writer and reader, there remains a great deal of interpretation left up to the reader. Readers will no doubt be eager to discuss such things as whether or not Daisy can be counted upon as a reliable, accurate narrator and why Shields gives us this variety of other narrative voices throughout the work.

1. Why do you suppose Shields "left out" what would usually be key events in portraying the life of Daisy Goodwill Flett? How much of her story is remembered either by her or her "witnesses" and how much imagined?

2. A critic once accused Shields of "engraving beautiful script on the head of a pin" (Andrew Garrod, Speaking for Myself, 1986). Why the precise detail given to what could be called mundane subjects...