В романе рассказывается о судьбах членов семьи Ершовых, потомственных металлургов, о путях технического прогресса на металлургическом заводе, о борьбе за передовые идеи, о победе принципиальности и справедливости.
Vsevolod Anissimovich Kochetov was a Soviet Russian writer and cultural functionary. He has been described as a party dogmatist and as a classic of socialist realism. Some of his writings were not well received by the official press, as Kochetov was considered too "reactionary" even by Soviet standards of the 1960s.