When sixteen-year-old coal digger Andy Stewart decides on his first day at work that there must be better and safer ways of knockin' the black out (a euphemism for extracting more coal from the earth), he sets about learning and developing technology to do so. But his lifelong friend and neighbor, Nick Rakos, takes a different route, through unionization, and they become bitter enemies. Both make marriages of convenience, but learn to love their wives with great passion. Caught up in the turmoil of the changes in the coalfields in the middle of the twentieth century, Andy reaches a high-level management position, while Nick becomes an efficient union organizer. After more than two decades of personal and professional antagonism, they cement their friendship again when they are hopelessly trapped in a mine cave-in. Based on real-life experiences, this is the story of coal camp people, their lives, their fears, their triumphs, their loves, their hates, and, yes, even their deaths.