ISBN 978-1-946395-35-1 | trade paper | $16.00 | publication date June 2020
Outside the Lines is a journey through the underbelly of Johannesburg, South Africa and the intimacy of family drama scattered across racial, religious, and class divisions. Drug addict Cathleen is kidnapped and her distracted, middle-class family fails to notice her absence; Zilindile, who services Cathleen’s drug habit, and his Muslim Indian girlfriend Farhana, struggle to make sense of their relationship despite their very different backgrounds; and domestic worker Flora and the silent Runyararo, who was painting Cathleen’s house until accused by Cathleen’s father of stealing, become entangled with romance and criminals, leading to the ultimate tragedy. A taut novel that walks the line between family drama, crime novel, thriller, and black comedy.
Reviews
“Patel displays an exceptional ability to plumb the depths of her characters, each of whose points of view throws light on the realities of the other narrators. Rays of hope and gentle overtures to love lift this vibrant novel.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
One of “10 Novels You Should Read in June” —CrimeReads
A Publishers Weekly “Books of the Week” pick
“Outside the Lines is a sharp novel that critiques how personal excesses damages those who indulge in it.” —Foreword Reviews
“There’s been an encouraging increase of diverse voices in South African literature of late, and Ameera Patel’s debut contributes to this exciting new movement. In her dramatic, drug-addled thriller, Patel explores criminality, excess, humanity and hope.” —Ms. Magazine
“In this coke-fueled thrill-ride through the underworld of Joburg, characters face difficult decisions and try to find some humanity, even as the quest for money and the need to meet family expectations tear them apart. South Africa is one of the great hot spots for crime fiction these days, and we can’t wait to see more from Ameera Patel.” —CrimeReads (“The Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2020: Summer Reading Edition”)
“[T]his dysfunctional family drama has unexpected moments of dark comedy to disrupt the unfolding, inevitable tragedy. While exposing the multilayered inequities of the haves vs. have-nots, Patel slyly ridicules white privilege, religious hypocrisy, clueless parenting, casual racism, ineffective rules and breakable laws. In clipped, often unadorned sentences, Patel skillfully presents a raw narrative of careless disconnections and scathing verity.” —Shelf Awareness
“Outside the Lines features as diverse a collection of characters as one could hope to meet. […] This heady mixture of characters meshes to a tense, literary thriller.” — The Big Thrill
“Patel deftly manages her large ensemble cast, whose stories unfold via a rapidly shifting first-person, present-tense narrative. Race, class, religion, and culture factor prominently in both the relationships that bind the characters and the conflicts that tear them apart.” — Mystery Scene Magazine
“[A] raw depiction of the intermeshed nature of political and personal realities and the human connections, dreams, aspirations of choice and self-alienation that exist in their gaps and fissures. The author dexterously manages a seamless storytelling experience despite the ever-shifting narrative voices that flit between the consciousness of five characters from three different races, each having their own religious affiliations and emotional baggages that constitute their psychological interiority.” —The Mantle
“A deftly crafted novel that blends family drama with crime and black comedy, Outside the Lines is a unique and extraordinary novel by an author with an impressive flair for the kind of narrative storytelling that grips the reader’s full attention and invests them in the characters and events portrayed. A riveting read from first page to last, Outside the Lines is an extraordinary and recommended addition to community and college/university library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections and personal reading lists.”— Midwest Book Review
“This not the Joburg you know. It is richer, kinder, funnier, and more exciting than our collective nostalgia for mid-1990s Madiba magic or today’s pessimistic news headlines would suggest. In an accomplished and gut-punching debut, Ameera Patel populates her Johannesburg with a cast of characters who refuse to be what we have come to expect from post-Apartheid fiction. In doing this, Ameera has created something contemporary, exciting, dark, and hopeful in all the best ways.” — Bontle Senne, author and literacy advocate
“Her storytelling is so vivid that the characters live on long after you have put down the novel.” —Business Live (South Africa)
“[Patel’s] astute eye for society in Gauteng, that ever-shifting mosaic of bizarrely diverse people, enhances this thriller-like novel.” — Mail & Guardian (South Africa)
“Ameera Patel’s first novel is edgy, witty, fresh, engaging, moving, memorable. This is an important new voice in the emerging movement of new South African fiction, taking us to places at once familiar and de-familiarized by the sensitivity of the writing. A vivid portrait of contemporary Johannesburg, wide-ranging, passionately engaged and acerbic. — Craig Higginson, novelist and playwright.
The Author
Ameera Patel is in the storytelling business. She is an actor, writer, theatre-maker and poet residing in Johannesburg. She read for a BA in Theatre and Performance at the University of Cape Town in 2005 and in 2013 she received a distinction for her Masters in Creative Writing at Wits University in Johannesburg. Ameera has worked as a performer in both theatre and television, and has written for television and the theatre, notably the play Whistle Stop, which won both a Silver Standard Bank Ovation Award and the PANSA Best New Writer award in 2014 in her home country South Africa. Outside the Lines, Patel’s first novel, was originally published by Modjaji Books and was long listed for a Barry Ronge Fiction Award (2017).