Spring 1849. Ilyay McCullough was only thirteen when the Comanche attacked his home in Texas, killing his mother and sister, and taking him along. Quick-witted and desperately brave, Ilyay soon got used to life among the Indians and became one of them. Not white and not Indian, the boy was suspended between two civilizations—one receding and one advancing. He himself must find his place in a world where adventures and tragedies follow each other with kaleidoscopic speed.
1915. Peter McCullough is crushed by a sense of guilt for what is happening around him—for the fury with which people tear away their own place in the sun. He is the exact opposite of his father—he doesn’t act, he observes and thinks. Peter came into this world too early, where only strength and drive are priced. The mid-twentieth century. Ginny McCullough is an unbending lady, ruling with an iron hand the richest company in Texas—if not in the whole country—and the head of a powerful oil empire. Her world is one of cold calculation and swift reactions to political news. But she doesn’t feel like she belongs in it. Philip Meyer’s stormy, sweeping, brightly drawn panorama—the novel is one of the best written in the twentieth century.