The Stone Diaries is an epic covering the life of one woman, Daisy Goodwill Flett, over the course of almost the entire twentieth century. Beginning with her birth in 1905, during which her mother dies, it catches up with Daisy at regular(ish) intervals through the century, covering her early life raised by her aunt Clarentine, her early marriage to the alcoholic Harold Hoad, a second marriage to a much older man (previously her ward, Barker Flett), parenthood and gradual decline through to her death in Florida in her nineties.

Larry's Party covers just over twenty years in the life of Laurence "Larry" Weller, an initially "ordinary man" in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It begins in the mid-70s with him as a 26 year old assistant florist, and ends with him hosting the titular dinner party in 1997, his life having changed beyond recognition, but in some ways coming back to where the book began...