nathaniel schmeling

College programmer Stranger is an anxiety-ridden over-thinker who takes psychoactive drugs while contemplating the heretical philosophical gambit of techno-anarchy to Satanism. Masking this underlying nerdiness with the public persona of an alpha-male heavy drinking frat star, he's coming to age as a mixed kid whose parents were born during the Civil Rights movement; one generation removed, he is increasingly forced to confront the myths of a post-racial America. Oh, and because these daily identity crises didn't cause enough trouble, Stranger falls in love for the first time, despite never having had a girlfriend or sex sober. He's become enthralled with the demure, soulfully morbid Gunny, who not only has a boyfriend but self-esteem issues that manifest in the self-harm practice of cutting, and she isn't exactly ready to leave the one guy who's supported her throughout the addiction. But don't worry, Stranger doesn't navigate this collegiate underworld alone, he has a whole cast of equally brilliant but disturbed misfits for his hedonistic, poetical high-romance odyssey. And throughout the chronicles of these madcap, absurdist tales, Stranger learns of the limits to love and the pains to be temporary, of failing friendships and intimate escapades, of youth and the aging world.