SIXTEEN TONS carries you down into the dark and dangerous coal mines of the early 1900s, as Italian immigrant Antonio Vacca and his sons encounter cave-ins and fires deep below the earth's surface. The dangers above ground are equally deadly, as the men and women battle gun thugs, corrupt sheriffs and crooked politicians at Virden, Matewan and Ludlow in an epic struggle to form a union and make the mines a safer place to work. Historian Kevin Corley's unique novel is based on oral histories of retired miners, their wives and their children that he collected. By staying true to their stories he has fashioned an honest, accurate and inspiring portrait of life among the coal mining families during those turbulent times. His oral histories and interviews were used by Carl Oblinger to write Divided Kingdom, a history of the coal mine wars