Arthur Hawke works as a coal truck driver in Kentucky, he in the process trying to protect his widowed mother Sarah Hawke's property rights against his wealthy and cutthroat paternal uncles' mineral rights. Sarah, however, may be more astute in the matters of business than her son. In his spare time, Arthur is writing a novel under the pen name Youngblood Hawke, it, his first, which he is able to sell to a New York publishing house. As such, Arthur moves to New York City while he works on the necessary rewrites and contemplates his next novel, which he knows can and will pour out of him.