Salvatore is only eight years old when he's sent to the Sicilian sulfur mines to work off his family's debt with the Mafia in 1888. Though the work is brutal, as he grows older, there is one bright spot-the beautiful Marianna, who also toils at the Miniera Di Zolfo. When they are teenagers, they fall in love and wed. For a time, they gain respite from the hard work and have two children, Samuel and Benedetto. But after three years, Salvatore must return to the mines; his family never sees him again. Marianna does her best to raise the boys without Salvatore, but a peasant's life in early...

Salvatore is only eight years old when he's sent to the Sicilian sulfur mines to work off his family's debt with the Mafia in 1888. Though the work is brutal, as he grows older, there is one bright spot-the beautiful Marianna, who also toils at the Miniera Di Zolfo. When they are teenagers, they fall in love and wed. For a time, they gain respite from the hard work and have two children, Samuel and Benedetto. But after three years, Salvatore must return to the mines; his family never sees him again. Marianna does her best to raise the boys without Salvatore, but a peasant's life in early...