The Stone Diaries (1994) By Carol Shields

 

The Pulitzer Prize winning Stone Diaries by Carol Sheilds is a fairly structured, complicated, and mostly well-written biography of a woman named Daisy born 1905 in far western Canada. Her mother Mercy dies in childbirth. Her father, Cuyler Goodwill, a worker in a stone quarry, traumatized by this turns to a neighbor lady Clarentine to care for the newborn.

Eventually, Clarentine will leave her husband and move to Winnipeg to the home of one of her sons, Barker, taking Daisy with her. Barker is a professor, well-known botanist and research expert on the spring-flowering Lady’s Slipper, but from a more practical standpoint it was his work on improving the Marquist hybrid of hearty spring red wheat that won him acclaim, and a military exemption from World War I.

Cuyler will provide financial support for his daughter but does not see her. Considered an expert in stone work, Cuyler is presented as an uneducated bumpkin in Chapter 1, but he somehow becomes a partner in a limestone mining company in Bloomington, Indiana, and transforms into a leading Chamber of Commerce type citizen.

As his career advances Barker will be advanced to the Agricultural Department of the Canadian government headquartered in Ottawa. And Daisy will move into her father’s palatial home in Bloomington and attend college.

As is expected for the time period, Daisy will marry. On her honeymoon in Paris, her husband dies in an accident making her an incredibly young widow; until she takes on her second husband, Barker, her senior by 20-some years.

Got all that?  Like I said, it is complicated.

At this point, the book becomes less complicated, and more interesting. It takes us through chapters titled Marriage, Love, Motherhood, Work, Sorrow, Ease, Illness and Decline, and finally Death.

Daisy has had two lifelong friends, nicknames Fraida and Beans. Her interactions with them, primarily through letter writing are priceless, and remind me closely and favorably of one of my favorite movies: How to Make an American Quilt. If you have not seen the movie (you should) it is comprised of weekly quilt-making meetings of old friends and relatives where personal and private trials and tribulations, loves and hates, are discussed in a manner that only close friends can understand. These are heartfelt discussions common among women, and nonexistent among men.

The book never lost my attention, though parts of it irritated me, Chapter 1 in particular. But read it, do not skip it, it provides too many connecting details – not the least of which is the “relic” discovered as Daisy’s children shift through her belongings after her death.

Recommendation: Yes

The Lincoln Highway (2021) By Amor Towles

 

I loved this book. In my years of mini book reviews, I have said: I recommend it, It was excellent, It was great, but until now I have never said “I loved this book.”

My niece gave me this book, The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. At first I set it aside thinking it would be a travelogue, a road trip. Route 30, known in most towns in the U.S. as the “Old Lincoln Highway” was the country’s first transcontinental roadway, running from Times Square to San Francisco Bay. It is not Route 66 classic The Grapes of Wrath, nor is it the beat generation’s On The Road Again. While the Highway is a re-occurring theme in the book, there is much more.

The novel begins as its central character, Emmett Watson, is being driven home by the warden to the family’s farm in Morgen, Nebraska having served his time in a juvenile detention school in Salina, Kansas. Emmett’s father had died several months back, his mother had left them many years back. The only family he has remaining is his ten years old brother Billy who has been in the care of a neighbor Sally, since their father died. The farm is being foreclosed on. The only item left to speak of was a Studebaker car that Emmett had purchased in his own name from working odd jobs.

After the bank officer, and a neighbor, have left Emmett and Billy, the brothers discover two guys in the barn. And that is where the story begins. The guys are Emmett’s bunk mates, Duchess, and Wooly, from the detention center back in Salina. They had stowed away in the Warden’s trunk unnoticed, escaping before their time was up.

The main characters, in addition to Emmett are:

Billy: His younger brother, a well-mannered and precocious kid who could be the incarnation of Young Sheldon of television fame.

Sally: A neighbor back in Nebraska who is disallusioned with life.

Duchess: A thespian whose performances have ranged from Shakesperean to circus, and whose father was a vaudeville great.

Wooly: A teenager with the spirit of a six-year-old, and a trust account.

Ulysses: A World War II vet, who has become a railroad “hobo.”

Professor Abernathe: An author whose book Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers plays a significant role in the book.

Forgive me for being stingy with details, but I am trying to not provide a spoiler here, because I want you to read the book.

AmorTowles is the author of the New York Times bestselling book A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility.

Recommendation: You bet.