        
                                SYNOPSIS
      
          The plot of our book, Divinity In A Box, revolves around
     Varina Davis--whose parents in the 1960's named her after Jefferson
     Davis' wife and daughter and whose once prominent plantation family
     attempts to maintain traditional Southern values in the small, poor
     Northern town of Farmersville, IN--and Raymond Manis--a bi-racial
     male, raised by his single, white mother in East St. Louis, whose
     defiance and boredom with reality lead him to New Orleans.  From
     their sharply contrasting backgrounds, the pair restlessly evolve
     to the same spiritual point in life before their chance meeting in
     the Skip-It bar, where the story opens.
          Being raised under her mother's Southern Belle attitude,
     Varina finds her own existential spirit constantly challenged. 
     Plagued all her life with "ladies don't", she feels confined and
     limited; but without realizing, she conforms, nearly becoming the
     person her mother had planned for her to be.  After facing various
     obstacles (pregnancy, infidelity, abuse), she completes her college
     degree and takes her first teaching job at the local high school
     where she befriends a free-spirited "skate rat" kid called C.J. who
     exposes her to the various inconsistencies of society's demands,
     especially those upon her as a teacher.  Their minds filled with
     unanswerable questions, the youth and Varina meet regularly at
     night in the graveyard outside of town to contemplate life's little
     contradictions.  From feeling trapped and abused to becoming the
     people Farmersville expects them to be, their lives parallel on
     several levels.  After an intense friendship, Varina accidentally
     kills C.J. in a car wreck from which she ultimately receives a
     large settlement and a sense of independence.
          Since Varina feels that Farmersville is miserably confining
     and her mental state after the accident will not allow her to
     return to the classroom, she takes her young son and flees
     Farmersville. She goes to stay with her friend and college mentor,
     Marie, who has accepted a position at Loyola in New Orleans. 
     There, Varina hopes to heal herself by writing historical fiction
     dealing with her family's attachment to the Jefferson Davis family;
     but soon after encountering Sting Ray Manis, a handsome bi-racial
     bartender whose life is in playing women, her novel research
     becomes two-fold: to investigate the family of her own namesake and
     to discover how Sting Ray acquired his nickname.  Because of her
     carefree spirit, trusting nature, and small town naivete, Varina
     exposes herself to the dangerous elements of New Orleans.  In the
     middle of her research, she is mugged and raped, which results in
     her being in a coma.  Her misfortune, however, provides Ray's life
     with some critical direction that ultimately saves both of them
     from a living death.  They begin a diligent quest to heal
     themselves and to understand each other, during which time their
     minds sensually merge to preserve their story for the future in the
     form of a novel--their mindchild.
