Maureen Stanton met Steve in their 20s. She’d just ended a troubled relationship, and he had left behind a difficult marriage. Together, they found a passionate love and shared a dream of living off the land in rural Michigan. Three years later, Steve was diagnosed with cancer at 29, and the pair embarked on an all-out effort to save his life.

Steve’s childhood friend, Joey, a drug addict, learned that he needed money for experimental cancer treatments that wouldn’t be covered by insurance. He offered to sell Steve’s pain medication to help cover the costs. Only one of the friends would survive.

In “The Murmur of Everything Moving,” Stanton chronicles a young, working-class couple’s odyssey through the medical scene. They navigate the terrain of illness, caregiving, compassion and loss. This beautiful and aching memoir is ultimately a story of love — romantic, brotherly and spiritual — in all its challenging but exquisite complexities.