As marginalized cultures step to the fore, one such group remains shadowed: West Virginia's many-faceted sub- culture of small mountain towns and of the women who live in them. Silver Bottle explores four generations of West Virginia women who "speak their piece," their separate stories bound together by a curious family heirloom, a silver bottle. Lorraine: a woman abandoned by her mother. Carmen: the mother who, after many years, re-establishes contact and tries to explain. Jenna: Lorraine's young daughter who desperately tries to help her mother heal, with shocking results. Lizzie: the furious source, the matriarch, who lives and moves within each relationship, the strength of her memories spanning generations. Through these women, Silver Bottle comes to terms with over a century of small-town West Virginia society. Their struggles, even in the most mundane matters, are struggles for survival. Their love, however destructive, is fierce and real. The understandings they come to satisfy no one and solve nothing, but do allow them to move on.