Western Lane: A Novel by Chetna Maroo

3.5 (2)
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Web ID: 16376075
A taut, enthralling first novel about grief, sisterhood, and a young athlete's struggle to transcend herself. Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms- the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo. But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe. An indelible coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo's first novel captures the ordinary and annihilates it with beauty. Western Lane is a valentine to innocence, to the closeness of sisterhood, to the strange ways we come to know ourselves and each other.

  • Product Features

    • Suggested age range - Adult
    • Format - Hardcover
    • Product dimensions - 5" W x 7.6" H x 0.9" D
    • Genre - Fiction
    • Publisher - Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Publication date - 02-07-2023
    • Page count - 160
    • ISBN - 9780374607494

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3.5/5

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2 reviews
CK1998
2 years ago
from U.S.A.

Deals more successfully with sports than life

The practice regime of three teen Indian sisters playing squash all their lives is increased by their father, after their mother dies, to help them cope with their loss, and to raise better behaved daughters. Western Lane, the title of this novella, is also the name of the courts where sisters Gopi, Khush, and Mona play squash. It reads fast, and the language is crisp and matter-of-fact, which is very successful to convey the intricacies of squash as a competitive discipline and snippets of the personalities who have shaped the sport, but not so much when the subject is grief, delayed rage, or sharing the love of each family member for one another. Longlisted for the Booker this year, I was glad to read it, if only to satisfy my curiosity. The ending is unsatisfying (so open that one might consider it nonexistent), and the lack of emotional heft makes me wonder about the rest of the nominees, but I‘ll be reading quite a few so I’ll be able to form a better opinion of the bunch before the shortlist is out.

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

Stroop Wafels
3 years ago
from AZ

A subtle and moving exploration of grief

Western Lane is a beautifully written story about one family coping with the death of its matriarch. There is a claustrophobic quality to the short novel as we are immersed in events from the perspective of Gopi, 11 years old and the youngest of three sisters. Gopi is struggling with the loss of her ma, feeling increasingly distant from her sisters, and confused and worried about her pa and his wellbeing. While Gopi and her sisters played squash recreationally one or twice a week, their father now has them playing all the time. Soon it becomes clear that Gopi has a lot of talent and she spends most of her time on the court. This was a subtle, lovely exploration of grief and how it gets mixed in/diluted/channeled with all of the other emotions and life transitions Gopi experiences. Thank you very much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com