All the Living

By C. E. Morgan
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, $23.00, 199 pages

In her meditative novel, Morgan poses age-old philosophical questions about self-identity and life. Aloma grew up in a Kentucky mission school. Now a young woman, she moves to the tobacco farm her lover Orren inherited upon the death of his family. She is a gifted pianist and he has told her of a piano on the homestead, but when she arrives, she finds a woeful old upright in a dilapidated house. Aloma tries to hide her disappointment and, seeing how hard Orren works, sets out to make the best of things. However, her music skills are extraneous on a farm and, as he buries his grief in his work, her sense of isolation grows. Aloma visits the rural church, hoping to play the piano, and the young preacher hires her. A mutual attraction develops between them and her dissatisfaction with life deepens, pushing her to consider leaving Orren.  Morgan’s strong sense of place helps to heighten Aloma’s inner struggle: the mountains hem her in and suppress the light. Given the conflict is internal, the pace of the novel slows at times, but the lyrical prose offsets this. An evocative work from a writer to watch.

Reviewed by Deb Jurmu