The novel is a story of a working-class couple, Billy and Saxon Roberts, struggling laborers in Oakland at the Turn-of-the-Century, who left city life behind and searched Central and Northern California for suitable farmland to own.
The book is notable for its scenes in which the proletarian hero enjoys fellowship with the artists' colony in Carmel, and he settles in the Valley of the Moon. Billy and Saxon are hard working people living in Oakland. When a issue erupts between the San Francisco bricklayers and the Oakland bricklayers, it leads to a riot that pulls both Billy and Saxon into the frantic fray.