This sprawling novel concerns the lives of two generations in one family; of their loves both licit and illicit, of their work, and of their personal triumphs and tragedies. It is a story, at first, about the three Woodruff brothers: Peter, a businessman, Leonard, an artist, and Ike, an attorney and member of Congress who risks his political career to prevent a lynching and bring justice to a black man falsely accused of murder. And it is about George Islar, a thoughtful physician, and his beautiful wife, Margaret, who is loved by Leonard. It is a triumphant expression of the human spirit, of the artist and of the forces that inevitably mold the lives of each succeeding generation, told by a modern master who has lived to see all of the ages of man about which he so consummately writes.