NOT ALL ASHES is a classic, southern, romance novel. The operatic exploration of the essence of love, life, death, happiness, betrayal, forgiveness, and the essential meaning of a nuclear family cohort are explored using the colorful setting of the small town of Black Bayou located on the Texas Gulf Coast during the two decades prior to World War II. A panoramic study of the intertwining lives of the Malloys, the Mathews, and the Hollands, allows the reader the leisure of exploring the vicissitudes of the beautiful and talented Christina Malloy, an orphan adrift In a small Texas Gulf coast town. The implicit question, indeed the underlying thesis is whether a person can rise above a corrupting environment or must finally sink to destruction. Christina teeters on the edge for much of the novel. At certain moments she seems about to claw her way out of degradation. But there are frightening relapses; old battles must be fought over and over again; old wounds will not heal. The reader follows the twists and the turns of Christina's life with a reservoir of sympathy. After all, she was dealt a bad hand through no fault of her own. But the willful destruction of her life and marriage puts a strain on one's good will. The logic of her earlier actions breaks down as her relationship with Mike Garth sours. She indulges herself in irrational accusations and thoughts that run counter to her sanity. One wonders if she is about to give into the darkness that conquered her brother Audie. She bends dangerously but does not snap. For a time, art becomes not just a refuge but an alternative that is superior to her life. She has to modify her dream and though at times she abandons it, in the end she will not surrender it. Out of mere misery of her existence, the narrow boundaries of her life, it opens the door to a better opportunity. Against all odds imposed by the harshness of her world, she struggles. Is the struggle heroic enough? Does she love who Mike Garth is, or who he once was for her? Christina seems to be closer to an answer than the reader, and her uncertainty drags the reader and her self all over the emotional map. Everything about Mike is past, or so she has consigned it. Yet, she will not release it to the past. And a past-held prisoner becomes, as always, a torture. In this unlikely, untenable, unthinkable painful stage of her life, Nate Holland appears. Strong, virile, rich, confident, not even Nate can crack the enigma she presents. The suspense is sustained until the very end, when healthy emotions finally burst through and love has, or will have - we hope, its way. This work represents the first novel written by Ralph Dittman. He did this work under the tutelage of his Aunt Myrteel Allen, a professional writer and a member of one of the oldest families in the nation, having emigrated from England in 1630. A prolific writer, Dittman, a physician and medical researcher, learned his craft from his Aunt. She was known best for her true romance short stories and novelettes. Dittman has written Allen's Landing. Hardball in Paris, The Tacana Philharmonic Band, The Del Junco Cohort, and was the senior editor of The Annotated Memoirs of Roy M. Huffington, as well as numerous film scripts and medical articles for lay journals.