Fringe

This novel offers a rare glimpse of life in America through the eyes of an African American boy maturing on Chicago's West Side. The character's journey unfolds in the late 1950's; passes through the turbulent 1960's and enters the 1970's.
Robert Rowell's parents were among tens of thousands of Blacks in the margins of American society migrating north to Chicago. They moved along with thousands of African Americans fleeing subsistence agricultural jobs in Southern states during the early 1900's through the 1950's. Robert's parents were seeking living wages, dignity and relief from the oppressive clutches of the Jim Crow South.
Robert Rowell was the youngest of six children born to Winfrey Rowell and Hattie Simms. Robert's father worked as a cook for the railroad. In 1937, after initially settling in Missouri, the family moved further North to Chicago, a bustling rail hub town.
Robert's experiences were typical of any black urban youth coming of age in America during this tumultuous period of social upheaval and transformation. Robert strived to reconcile the conflicting reality of his two worlds – a small segregated Black community versus the broader, dominate majority society. Robert's unique interactions with his community and society provide the reader an unprecedented window into the mind of a human being attempting to maneuver into manhood and find his place from the very edge of American society – the Fringe.