"In the Appalachian foothills, Judy and her three young boys are left to fend for themselves while her husband leaves for work on a sheep ranch out west. Life isn't easy in the Hawkins house during Ken's absence, and Judy struggles to survive and provide for her sons, helped only occasionally by her brother-in-law, who also happens to be her former lover. Stark necessity and a determination to keep her family alive and safe forces Judy to make unorthodox - and often immoral - decisions. And times become increasingly difficult as her boys encounter violence, death, alcoholism and tobacco abuse as they come of age in the isolation of the Appalachia foothills in the 1950s."