Eugene and Diamond shared a unique relationship. Social and or economic poverty was prevalent in the southwest Virginia mountains of 1940. Injustice prevails in our society, past and present. Natural resources have always been valuable assets to any geographic setting. Several scenes in the novel refer to the characters' actions and reactions that deal with human life and its value.
Children have difficulty sometimes learning to trust others when they have lost a loved one.
Baldacci makes several references to threats to the land. In the novel the mountains seem to be living beings. The character of George Davis is, on one level, totally evil. The novel makes a distinction between farmers on the mountain and those people making their living in the towns. This geographic grounding permeates the perspectives of the inhabitants in the story and finds them often at odds.