Oil! - Plot

Plot

The book is divided into twenty-one chapters with titles, which are further subdivided into numbered sections.

1. “The Ride” – Bunny and Dad are introduced to the reader as they drive by car through the southern California desert to a meeting with the owners of some oil property.
2. “The Lease” – Dad meets with the owners of the residential lots to discuss an oil lease; the owners are hopelessly deadlocked about how the properties and proceeds should be divided; the character of Paul Watkins is introduced.
3. “The Drilling” – Details of the oil drilling business and of the Ross family.
4. “The Ranch” – Dad and Bunny go quail hunting on the Paradise goat ranch, property of the Watkins family, and find oil.
5. “The Revelation” – At Bunny’s urging, Dad tries to prevent Old Man Watkins from beating his oldest daughter Ruth; Dad tries to convince them that he has received the “third revelation”, which prohibits parents from beating their children (among other things), but the plan backfires when Eli Watkins, Paul’s younger brother, interjects himself into the discussion and claims that HE has received the revelation.
6. “The Wild-Cat” – Drilling begins at the Paradise oil field; Bunny begins to realize his father’s business methods are not entirely ethical; an oil worker is killed in an accident, and the oil well explodes and burns.
7. “The Strike” – The oil workers go on strike, and Bunny is torn between loyalty to Dad and his friendship to Paul and Ruth Watkins.
8. “The War” – Bunny begins a high-school love affair with Eunice Hoyt, daughter of a wealthy family; WWI breaks out, Paul is drafted, and the Ross and Watkins families are divided.
9. “The Victory” – WWI is over, but Paul remains in Siberia with the Allied intervention forces opposing the Soviets; Bunny decides to go to college after high school.
10. “The University” – Bunny enrolls in Southern Pacific University, where his ideas of social justice evolve further as he meets free-thinking professors such as Dan Irving.
11. “The Rebel” – Bunny becomes increasingly involved with various socialist and radical students, including Rachel Menzies, against the background of the Red Scare. Also Paul comes home and tells of his travels.
12. “The Siren” – An aging socialite attempts to seduce Bunny aboard her yacht.
13. “The Monastery” – Bunny accompanies Dad to the Monastery, the seaside mansion of his business associate Vernon Roscoe.
14. “The Star” – Bunny begins an affair with Viola (“Vee”) Tracy, a silent film star; she loves him deeply, but does not share his political views.
15. “The Vacation” – Bunny goes back east with Vee and Dad, ostensibly to take care of some business matters, but in reality so that Roscoe can have a free hand to crush the oil workers’ movement.
16. “The Killing” – Dad makes a killing by joining with the big oil companies, but loses his independence; Bertie, Bunny’s spoiled socialite sister, has an abortion.
17. “The Exposure” – The bribery involved in the naval oil reserve transactions during the Harding administration becomes exposed by radical journalists, including Dan Irving; Bunny broaches his idea of going away and earning his own way in the world to Dad, who is confused and hurt, but not unsupportive.
18. “The Flight” – Roscoe and Dad are forced to flee to Canada and then to Europe (accompanied by Bunny), to avoid being subpoenaed by Congress in connection with the naval oil reserve scandal.
19. “The Penalty” – Dad meets and marries Mrs. Olivier, a widower and Spiritualist, but he soon passes away from pneumonia.
20. “The Dedication” – Bunny decides to dedicate his life and his inheritance to social justice; Roscoe moves to get control of the bulk of Dad’s estate.
21. “The Honeymoon” – Bunny and Bertie are swindled out of most of their inheritance by Roscoe and Dad’s widow; Bunny marries Rachel Menzies and they dedicate themselves to establishing a socialist institution of learning; Eli Watkins, by now a successful (and completely hypocritical) evangelist, adds insult to injury by falsely claiming that his communist brother Paul underwent a deathbed conversion to Christianity; the final, sad end of Paul and Ruth Watkins.