Two years after being airlifted out of Vietnam in 1975, Matt Pin is haunted by the terrible secret he left behind and, now, in a loving adoptive home in the United States, a series of profound events forces him to confront his past.

On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam built to create a man-made lake for America's wealthiest businessmen collapsed, unleashing twenty million tons of water onto the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, below; told in the voices of six children and many others this is the story of the ordinary people of the town, their losses and their survival--and of the bitter aftermath when those for whom the dam was built denied all responsibility for the shoddy dam...

The day nine-year-old Grace is called to work in the kitchen in the Big House, everyone warns her to to keep her head down and her thoughts to herself, but the more she sees of the oppressive Master and his hateful wife, the more she questions things until one day her thoughts escape--and to avoid being separated she and her family flee into the Dismal Swamp, to join the other escaped slaves who live there.