Outside the Lines

How far must you go to repay an old friend who once saved your life? Outside the Lines, an historical novel set in the early 1960s, explores this disturbing question.

When Lucas Webster returns to his farm in South Georgia for a brief visit, he learns CJ Jackson, his childhood friend, has disappeared somewhere in Alabama. Though the men are of different races, they were close when they were young. Now CJ, one of the first African-American All-Stars on a major league baseball team in Cleveland, Ohio, is scouting for more colored players in the southeast. When he vanishes, CJ's family asks Lucas, a longtime journalist, to find him.

But Lucas doesn't want to get involved. He hasn't seen CJ in five years, and he has problems of his own in Atlanta. Still grieving the sudden death of his wife, he's drinking more and more each day. He can't summon the focus to complete even a short news article and has been fired from two jobs. And back in Crisscross, CJ has been making his own news-he's been seeing a white woman and he's urging Negroes to register to vote. And his activities have attracted the attention of the Ku Klux Klan.

Outside the Lines explores the question of loyalty and the ties that bind family and friends, as well as the world of the Freedom Riders and early civil rights movement in the South.