A major theme of this book was peace and war. Although the book wasn’t about a direct war it was about a war that took place between coal miners and large coal companies that often took advantage of those miners. Specifically, after WWII, Dillon comes back to find a completely different world because of the demand that is placed on the coal miner and the little respect that they are granted. A large portion of the book depicts their fight to gain their peace: their rights, their pay and their jobs. Every character of the book is involved in the war for peace because they all live in the coal town and are being directly affected by the strikes, the random FBI interactions, and other members in their family being coal miners.