Oil! follows James Arnold Ross and his son, James Arnold Ross Jr., as they do whatever it takes to own their very own oil well. Ross's son--nicknamed Bunny--provides an idealistic counterpoint to his father's avaricious dealings. Their story intertwines with that of Eli Watkins, a revivalist preacher who seeks spiritual power. As the stories of the Ross and Watkins families intertwine, the struggle between the material and the spiritual sharpens. Told over the course of the United States's Gilded Age, World War I, and the post-war years, Oil! is a Dickensian portrait of a country so rich in resources and manpower that it becomes its own greatest enemy.