Gloria Murray's daughter jokes that Gloria would have sold her first born to further her musical career - a reproach closer to the truth than anyone but Gloria suspects. Gloria, born just before the Great Depression, knows from the moment she hears a soaring song played on the piano that she must follow that river of emotion. After an adolescence playing in churches and hotel lobbies, she prepares to study in post-World War II France, when another sort of passion intrudes and, halfway through her year abroad, she finds herself forced into a hard choice that she shares with no one. Her career blossoms, she marries, and has two more children, and her secret seems best forgotten - until, thirty years later, she learns of the murder of a young composer who could have been her son. Set against a backdrop of war, economic changes, and social upheavals, River Music explores the sacrifices that women make to fulfill their destiny, the wildcards of sex and passion, and the complicated relationships between mothers and their children.