Unlike some of Shields' earlier fiction, The Stone Diaries does not have a companion piece to fill out the lives of some of the peripheral characters, but readers might also enjoy her first two novels, The Box Garden (1977) and Small Ceremonies (1976). These paired books portray the lives of two very different sisters, Judith Gill and Charleen Forrest. Like The Stone Diaries, relationships between women are paramount and enrich the story of their childhood and their shared memories. It is interesting that even in these early works, Shields is clearly fascinated by how our perspective changes events as we remember them. Happenstance (1980) is another novel by Shields that provides more than one perspective on a story; in this case we read the husband's and the wife's view of their relationship in separate sections of the novel.