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)
“Outside the Lines is a sharp novel that critiques how personal excesses damages those who indulge in it.” —Foreword Reviews
“[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)
“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)
“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).