The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields

I enjoyed this book; it reminded me of A Woman of Independent Means, by Elizabeth Hailey, in that it mainly revolved around the long life of one woman. Daisy, the leading lady, certainly wasn’t very lovable, but likeable because she was a regular woman. There were no explicit heroes or good guys; each character had its ups and downs. I loved how Daisy’s father, Cuyler, was such a quiet, plain man who lived such a life until he saw something that sparked in him and he went for it. He made his own happiness, he discovered it and held onto it. After his wife (his spark) died, he started building a tower around her grave and it grew to be a magnificent attraction for the area. It unknowingly paved the rest of his life.

Another enjoyable character development was defined during a monologue of one of Daisy’s daughters, Alice. All her life, she’d lived in the same room and stared up at the same crack in the ceiling. Its persistence got to her. So one morning, she got a ladder, some putty, sanded it, painted over it and erased it. She says, “In one day, I had altered my life: my life, therefore, was alterable. This simple action did not cry out for exegesis; no, it entered my bloodstream directly, as powerful as heroin. I could feel it pump and surge, the way it brightened my veins to a kind of glass. I had wakened that morning to narrowness and predestination and now I was falling asleep in the storm of my own free will.” Lovely. What’s great about this book is that it is humble. An easy read, enjoyable, too.