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A. Manette Ansay, the author of such well-received novels as Midnight Champagne and River Angel, didn't set out to be a writer, but a concert pianist. In this affecting memoir, she tells what happened to change her course. In early adulthood, having spent years practicing at the keyboard, Ansay was felled by a mysterious illness that robbed her of motor control--and, soon, her ability to walk. Ailments of unknown origin weren't uncommon among her fellow students, she writes, for musical training is far more punishing physically than nonmusicians might imagine, and moments of respite are rare--reason enough to take ill. Even so, this malady stumped her doctors and drove her into a doubting self-examination through which she concluded that her illness was a test of faith devised by a stern but not unloving God; "just because you can't find the reason doesn't mean it isn't there." The loss of her physical strength and musical calling were tough tests, she writes, but life would toss tougher ones her way over the years, and to gauge by this memoir she has met them well. Ansay touches on matters of courage, faith, and bewilderment before arriving at a nicely optimistic conclusion. For, she writes, despite it all, despite having been confined to a wheelchair for nearly half her life, the good has far outweighed the bad, a happy instance of "that precarious balance that drives us to value what we have, to cling to the world as we do." Gracefully written and full of small epiphanies, Limbo will prove a pleasure for Ansay's many loyal readers, and for those new to her work. --Gregory McNamee
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