In this tale of two southern misfits, a sensitive church secretary, forced to keep a disgraceful secret about her pastor, struggles with her husband and her very own sanity as the angry and disillusioned pastor’s son, just returned from the Vietnam war, searches for his life’s true direction in a Georgia mill town in 1970.

SYNOPSIS:

WILLENE SHIRAH, a sensitive, devout southern Baptist, lives in Thomaston, Georgia, a town that grew up around several large textile mills. In 1970, in order to support the family income, and at the urging of her husband JOHN SHIRAH, she finally gets her dream job at her church working as secretary to REV. RANDY SHEPHERD. No one knows, yet, that Willene has undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia and that she gets divine messages from her television. Nor does anyone know, except Willene, that Randy’s having an affair with a HESTER REAVE, a young woman in his congregation. Meanwhile, Randy’s son, RANDALL SHEPHERD, JR., returns home unceremoniously from Vietnam. Randy wants him to go into seminary, but after his experience at war, to the chagrin of Randy and his mother PEG SHEPHERD, Randall, Jr. not only questions his calling, but his very faith. In addition, Randall, Jr.’s friendship with his war buddy ISAIAH “IZZY” JUSTICE, who’s black, as well as Randall, Jr.’s expressions of attraction to Willene, add further stress to his and Randy’s relationship.

Willene’s struggle to keep Randy’s secret only deepens her psychosis. It doesn’t help that John is a heavy-handed patriarch who’s also a deacon at the church. When her son TOM comes home to ask John to co-sign on a car note, John rejects the idea. Willene, convinced in her delusion by the hazy NEWSMAN talking to her from her tv, decides to go behind John’s back to sign the car note. Randall, Jr. finds that life in his hometown is not what he thought it was cracked up to be as he gets denied a job and finds life in his household with his father to be oppressive. When he brings his friend Izzy to church one morning, he also discovers that Randy’s position as a town elder is fraught with hypocrisy. Disillusioned, he finds solace in drink as he plots his escape. Willene, emboldened in her delusion that the Newsman is a divine herald who’s urging her to expose Randy’s sin, reveals the fact of Randy’s affair at her Sunday Bible Study attended by Peg, who turns around and confronts Randy. Immediately regretting her decision, Willene seeks solace from John, just to discover to her distress that he’s not only unsympathetic to her cause, but wants her to continue to stifle the truth as well. In the middle of all this it seems that the only person who may understand what she’s going through may in fact by Randall, Jr. When John also discovers that Willene co-signed on Tom’s car note, it forces a confrontation that breaks her, revealing the depth of her paranoia and delusion.

At the urging of Randy and Willene’s doctor, John has Willene committed to a mental hospital.

Meanwhile, Randall, Jr. escapes with Izzy to a music festival in the middle of Georgia to rival Woodstock in size and counterculture cred. There they turn on, tune in, and drop out, only to find that flower power isn’t quite what it seems? Will Willene find her way back to sanity and self-worth? Will Randall, Jr. freak out and become an acid casualty? Will these two southern misfits ever get to appreciate themselves as kindred spirits again?