SOURCE: "Rock-Solid, Stone-Cold," in New York Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 10, March 7, 1994, p. 62.

[In the following excerpt, Koenig discusses the plot and themes of The Stone Diaries.]

Speaking at her college-graduation ceremony, Daisy Goodwill's father asks his audience to think of the knowledge they have acquired as if it were Salem limestone, the pride of Indiana. "You are the stone carver. The tools of intelligence are in your hand. You can make of your lives one thing or the other…. The choice, young citizens of the world, is yours." The following June, however, he tells Daisy's engagement party that the fossil stone itself exists because of "the lucky presence" 300 million years before of a warm, shallow sea. Whether our lives are formed by conscious acts or by the accretion of numerous tiny accidents is the theme of The Stone Diaries.

Daisy Stone Goodwill's life begins one day in 1905 when her...