In the book Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina, education, and the lack there of, plays one of the largest roles in the character's lives. At this time in West Virginia, where the book is set, many children had to leave school and actually go into the coalmines, as Rondal Lloyd did, or work on the family farm. Racial ignorance is also a key element Giardina confronts in the novel. The characters, chief and secondary, equally cultural and racially bland, pass on their beliefs and therefore help to maintain the continuous circle of inequality that carries on even today. Political knowledge, at least on the national and state level, is also lacking within the little town of Annadel. With this knowledge coupled with her own experiences from growing up as an immigrants daughter in the same coalfields as her novels characters, Denise Giardina tries to explain the function of...