"Without Virgil": Synopsis

With little more than the address of his Aunt’s apartment in New Mexico in hand, Taji Barbosa decides to find his long lost mother after his younger brother Alonzo is murdered. Taji convinces his best friend Dante Sumons to aid him in this search and they leave their hometown in Maryland for an improvised journey through landscapes both foreign and familiar.

Fumbling their way along the margins of the road, they find themselves driving deep into America’s forgotten past. Only as Dante drives further and further away from home, Taji’s motivations become increasingly doubtful. Understanding the original purpose of their adventure takes a back seat, however, when they wind up at a Lakota Sioux Sundance in South Dakota, a place where the lines between reality and imagination blur.

At the Sundance, Dante meets a beautiful young Lakota woman named Amanda, and the complicated yet powerful attraction that convinces Dante to travel with Amanda and her two year-old daughter back to the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Living in America’s forgotten third world, Dante finds himself deeply torn between the need to follow his heart and the limitations imposed by fate on his encounter with Amanda. When Taji’s concealed motives finally collide with Dante’s nascent plans for the future, Dante makes a discovery that will forever alter their lives and faces a decision that will challenge everything he has ever know.

“Without Virgil,” a completed 95,000 word novel, is a story about uncovering the painful truths that lie buried at the heart of each family, unearthing a sense of purpose capable of changing misfortune into meaning and finding a mentor who can help guide one down the darker roads of life.