We first encounter Alice Haywood burning books and papers, making phone calls but not speaking, striking a single note repeatedly on the piano, 'expressing something ... I was not yet able to put into words'. That 'something' is a profound sense of isolation acquired over the years as this only child of an unhappy rural family travelled to boarding school then music college before falling into marriage with an Oxford economics don.

Spanning the 1930s to present day, Alice's life is in many ways characteristic of women of her times: one of reaction rather than action. Domestic violence is a cause for sadness but no real surprise to her, the narrative's quick skip through decades reinforcing the dismal predictability and silence in such situations, for 'this was not a conversation one had ... Marriages were sealed boxes.' Playing piano offers Alice some consolation and release, and brings rare moments of praise from her husband. But even this relationship is fraught; while music can be 'a means of liberation, a returning to oneself', it necessarily 'makes you feel ... That is the problem with it'.

The same score can prompt entirely different interpretations. Music and Freedom urges us toward 'balance ... Rhythm versus rubato. Tightness versus looseness. Head versus heart.' In tracing Alice's journey of discovery and recovery, Morrison reveals how this harmony can be achieved – in music, life, and the written word.