September 1936. Sam Corley is staking his family's future on the President of the United States, but if he has to wait two more years for FDR's promises to come to fruition, he and his will starve. With the coal company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, life in Scotts Run, West Virginia is going from precarious to ruinous.

Hazel Corley is fretting over the arrival of another child as much as she fears another winter in a dilapidated house that shudders when the winds howl through the hollow. Folks who work hard shouldn't suffer so much empty: empty pockets, empty shelves, and empty bellies. If their relocation to Arthurdale, a place of self-sufficiency and full employment, turns out to be an empty dream, sorrow stands ready to overwhelm the void.

Although hope seems but a slender lifeline, Sam and Hazel refuse to let it slip from their grasp.

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