Joseph M. Williams

The Fringe Dwellers is an offbeat, darkly quirky comedy about a couple (Christian and Laura) that constantly breaks up and gets back together. At the start of the novel, they've broken up nine times already. Well, ten if you count the time Laura broke up with Christian and he didn't realize it because he thought she was just out of town. Their love story is disrupted by the presence of Christian's grade school nemesis and first love, Susan. Susan and Christian were always more intense than anyone else in their grade. During naptime, they were the only ones who used an abacus to count sheep. Susan is currently dating Christian's best friend Mark, a lawyer at a very prestigious law firm - they don't even advertise on television. Giving Christian advice are his 400 pound cab driver friend, Abu, who used to be over 800 pounds and his therapist friend, Thelma, who has issues of her own. Complicating things is the presence of Christian's ex-girlfriend, Cindy Lou Hurtsong, a faded country singer attempting a comeback after drug rehab, a presidential affair and several misguided appearances on celebrity reality shows. Her stage name is actually Cindy Mae Hurtsong. She decided to record under the name Cindy Mae instead of Cindy Lou because she thought the name Cindy Lou made her sound too much like a hick. Throw in Laura's fourteen year old pot-smoking niece, Christian's battling parents who wrap each other's Christmas presents every year in half-filled out divorce papers and Mean Old Miss Bostwick, Christian's malevolent downstairs landlord who prefers Tasering tenants rather than going through the hassle of filling out eviction notices and it becomes a question of whether love can overcome all the complications life throws at it.

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