#Bookreview of The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir
By: Maureen Stanton
Publisher: DLJ Books at Columbus State University Press
Publication Date: March 15, 2025
ISBN: 979-8991456500
Reviewed by: Nellie Calanni
Review Date: August 6, 2025
In The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir, Maureen Stanton offers a deeply intimate and harrowing memoir that explores the fragility of life, the fierce tenacity of love, and the moral complexities that arise when survival is on the line. Set against the backdrop of rural Michigan in the 1980s, Stanton recounts her relationship with Steve, a man she met in her twenties, as they built a life rooted in simplicity, self-reliance, and shared dreams – only to have it upended by a devastating cancer diagnosis.
What follows is an emotional and ethical odyssey. As Steve battles for his life, conventional medicine proves insufficient and prohibitively expensive. Enter Joey, Steve’s childhood friend and a struggling addict, who offers to help by selling Steve’s prescription painkillers on the street to fund experimental treatment. The decision sets in motion a chain of events that is both heartbreaking and haunting, culminating in a stark reminder that not all who fight survive – and not all who try to help walk away unscathed.
Stanton writes with unflinching honesty and lyrical clarity, weaving a narrative that’s as much about caregiving, loyalty, and moral ambiguity as it is about illness and grief. She captures the brutal grind of life within the medical-industrial complex, the quiet heroics of caretaking, and the gray zones where desperation and love intersect. This is not a story that offers easy answers – it offers something far more powerful: truth.
Themes of devotion, loss, working-class struggles, and spiritual reckoning pulse through every page, and Stanton’s gift lies in her ability to hold both tenderness and tragedy in the same breath. Her prose is immersive and unguarded, honoring not only Steve’s life but the entire web of relationships – romantic, platonic, and familial – that shaped their journey.
Quill says: Maureen Stanton’s The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir is a breathtaking, morally complex memoir about love’s endurance in the face of impossible choices. It’s a poignant, painful, and ultimately redemptive story of two people trying to hold on to each other – and to hope – against overwhelming odds.
For more information about The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir, please visit the author's website at: maureenstantonwriter.com
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