Inside the Lion Cage

Inside the Lion Cage is an original novel that follows a Guyanese-American family—specifically, mother, Manisha, and son, Sammy—after a kidnapping shocks the Pennsylvanian suburb in which they live. The kidnapping, along with the sudden reappearance of Manisha’s illicit ex-lover—the teenage son of her best friend—leads to the resurfacing of Manisha’s dark psyche that she previously suppressed to attempt a “normal” suburban family life. Meanwhile, Sammy is confronted with his own moral dilemmas when presented with the chance to save the kidnapped girl. This novel explores the repercussions of being a social outsider in a conformist community and examines different types of resulting deviance—the harmless deviance that challenges arbitrary norms and the dangerous deviance that rejects ethical behavior and embraces the wicked.