Shadow Lines

In this award-winning novel, Stephen Kinnane has written a deeply personal story of two remarkable people and of a vibrant, resilient Aboriginal community that flourished against the odds in the heart of Perth.

A powerful and lyrical work by a writer of vision and imagination, Shadow Lines is the story of Jessie Argyle, born in the remote East Kimberley and taken from her Aboriginal family at the age of five, and Edward Smith, a young Englishman escaping the rigid strictures of London.

In a society deeply divided along racial lines, Edward and Jessie met, fell in love and, against strong opposition, eventually married. Despite unrelenting surveillance and harassment, the Smith home was a centre for Aboriginal cultural and social life for over thirty years.