Jacob’s Cellar is a saga of assimilation and survival, following of a clan of immigrants that makes its way from pre-Revolution North Carolina to Missouri in the years leading up to the Civil War. The cellar itself is a dark foreboding place used for family gatherings, as a hiding place for objects and refugees, a retreat for lovers, a den of betrayal and ultimately the source of legends that ensures the salvation of protagonists from the crucible of the Civil War The novel concerns the experience of ordinary rural Americans caught on the wrong side of history in most respects, participants in a journey leading to the disintegration of old cultural identities and assimilation into the larger society. Their individual triumphs and tragedies are tales of survival through these overwhelming events.