Chetna Maroo

Eleven-year-old Gopi is having a hard time. Her mother passed away recently, and her father is struggling to deal with his own grief, as well as adjusting to the role of single parent to three preteen daughters. Their family and community of British Indians is close, but conservative. Acting against the advice so freely given, their father decides that the sport of squash is what the girls need and begins an intensive training program for his daughters. The older two fade away, but Gopi show more proves to be both skilled and passionate about the sport. The novel is a quiet, introspective look at the relationship between a grief-stricken girl and her father, love for the game of squash, and the intricacies of Indian immigrant life in Britain.

Western Laneis assured, understated, and an extreme example of show don't tell. Maroo perfectly captures the conflicting emotions of young girls who desire to please their parent, but sometimes misinterpret what that parent truly wants from them, and who are dealing with their own volatile internal landscape. It's no surprise that the novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, it's only a wonder that it is a debut novel. I look forward to seeing what the author writes next. show less

27. Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
OPD: 2023
format: 151-page hardcover
acquired: December read: Apr 29 – May 3 time reading: 3:48, 1.5 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: Contemporary Fiction theme: Booker 2023
locations: contemporary London and Edinburgh
about the author: A British Indian author born in Kenya, who lives in London.

A novel of wonderful rhythmic hypnotic prose. It took me a few sittings, but I found myself swept up in Gopi's world of grief and squash.

This is an unassuming novel on a show more grieving family of Jains in England. Jainism is an Indian religion akin to Hinduism, Sikhism, and even Buddhism. Their religious emphasis is non-violence and vegetarianism, none of which plays a direct role in the story. But the father takes pains to let his Pakistani friend know they are Jains, and so, different.

Sorry, where was I? The family is a dad and three very close sisters grieving over the recent loss of their mother. Her death hit the whole family hard and they try to make do. Dad is an electrician, so he has an income but not a big one. The older girls pick up some chores. And then Dad gets them into squash, more and more, eventually several hours a day. But while the older girls slowly back out of this training, the youngest daughter, Gopi, embraces it, taking to the sounds and rhythms of the play and the game flow and its strategies. She and her father watch the best squash players on a video cassette and discuss them. She is 11.

The entire book revolves around her world of squash, and her family's grieving. And while i knew to look for the rhythm, I didn't find it at first. For a bit it was just a regular book, and I set it aside a few days. Then I picked it up a four-hour flight and found myself deeply into it before I noticed the prose rhythms behind it. Yes, it's a nice story. But the telling is captivating. I got emotional in all the emotional spots. I fully bought in, sometimes slowing myself down so I could remember the reading, instead of the rush to finish. I was sad to finish.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/360386#8533089 show less

A beautifully told story of a family struggling to come to terms with the grief of the loss of their wife and mother.

Gopi is eleven when her Ma dies, her sisters, Khush, thirteen and Mona, fifteen. Their father is uncertain of how to grieve the loss of his wife,and how to parent his children. Uncle Parvan and Aunt Ranjan visit , and offer to take one of the children. Their father decides that squash will be a way for the family to cope, and Gopi excels at this. Pa ( who remains unnamed show more throughout the book) becomes withdrawn, doesn't work and begins a relationship with a white woman, Linda.

This is a quiet, subtle , and very moving story.

Page 101 " I didn't know , then, that it was to the limping creature behind Pa's eyes that I should have been paying attention. Instead, I was thinking of the presence whose hold on Pa was slipping away, and the feeling that if it did, then our living room and our house and Western Lane and everything we knew would go with it."

4 stars. show less

I can honestly say, this is the first family drama I have ever thoroughly enjoyed, one in which I truly liked ever character. I initially thought, the first family drama without an antagonist, but wait, there is one, Grief.
The story is told by 11 year old, Gopi, the youngest of three sisters. They and their Pa are struggling with the recent loss of mother and wife. Grief weighs heavily on them all and each has their own way of trying to reconcile with this loss.
For Gopi it is playing squash show more at Western Lane, a sports facility in England. Once a passion of her fathers, it is now Gobi's. Not only to please her father or to practice with 13 year old local boy, Ged, but as a sort of release.
Tensions run deep as they struggle but there is no denying it circles around the love each member has for each other.
Beautifully written and with so much feel it is hard to believe one can get so attached in a slim novel of only 150 pages. That's solid writing, in my opinion. show less