A story about a newly married young couple and a company town. And although the marital problems of the couple, a doctor and his adulterous wife, appear at first sight to be the author's predominant concern, the mining town of Macklin functions at once as locale and major character in the novel. The town surrounds the couple both horizontally and vertically, the reader being aware of the latter through repeated references to asbestos dust in the air and to miners, on round-the-clock shifts, constantly burrowing underground.