War and peace, love and death, romance and betrayal, these are the crucial questions confronted by the men and women of the Greatest Generation in this novel of four people and their interweaving stories, connected by the forces that enrapture us all during the hardscrabble days of the Great Depression and the vital battles of World War II, from the Appalachian countryside where Coal is King to the nightclubs, racetracks, and cabin cruisers of the high life.