Western Lane – Chetna Maroo (2023) 161 pages
I am not interested in sport of any kind. I’m not anti-sport either, it just completely passes me by. So a novel about squash is not one I’d leap on. But of course Western Lane isn’t about squash; I don’t really know any more about the game than I did before reading the novella. What it explores, against the background of 11 year-old Gopi’s squash playing, is grief, family relationships, and tentative healing.
“It was with a feeling of having been rescued that I raised my racket and served.”
Gopi lives with her widowed father and her two older sisters, beautiful Kush and angry Mona, whose rage is palpable as she tries to keep the home running after the death of their mother.
Their father takes them to the titular sports centre, seemingly at a loss as to how to provide support for his daughters when he is in so much pain himself. Of the three, it is Gopi who throws herself into the game.
“I began dreaming of Western Lane. I saw the white walls and the blossom outside. At night I got out of bed and went over to the windows where there was a bit of light coming through the curtains. I sat on the floor with my racket, my back against the radiator. It was silent now because it was no longer on. I fixed a new grip onto my racket inexpertly, then peeled the tape off and fixed it again.”
The characterisation is so well realised. Her father is distant and quiet, and yet still such a presence on the page. The adult reader understands more of his grieving that Gopi does, and his floundering underscored by deep love and kindness is so moving.
There is a restrained supernatural element which runs through the story. All the family at some times feel a sense of the person who is gone. This is never explained away, nor does it grow into a metaphysical/magic realist type story. Instead it serves to demonstrate how the absence of their mother/wife is a constant presence for them all:
“Maybe, I thought, she would arrive eagerly only to find that things were too solid, and that we – our bodies – were too hard for her. I wondered would our touch bruise her. Would our talk hurt her ears. When we moved would we seem to fly past her, causing her to fall back.”
They all struggle with well-meaning friends and relatives interfering at various points and the pain of this becomes deeper as it threatens Gopi’s friendship with Ged, a white boy, and her father’s friendship with Ged’s mother.
“While Ma was alive, whenever we did something we weren’t supposed to, our relatives would bring Ma’s feelings into it, as if she was easy to hurt. But she wasn’t. It didn’t matter now. Now she was gone, our capacity to hurt her seemed infinite.”
The novella builds towards a climax of a squash tournament, as Gopi tests herself for the first time against unknown players in an unfamiliar setting. But really I didn’t feel it needed this construct. The family relationships, the tensions and strains, and Gopi trying to manage huge feelings provided enough drive to the plot.
Maroo’s writing is beautifully restrained throughout the whole novella and so thankfully, Western Lane doesn’t end on a lifted-onto-shoulders-waving-the-cup moment, but something much more ambiguous and real. This wasn’t unsatisfying and the story felt whole. I was left hoping that things worked out for them all.
“The world seemed big and luminous with some secret that would soon be known to me.”
madame bibi lophile recommends 
As another non-sports fan, I really loved this one too. I thought it was beautifully done.
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It really was! The squash element was integrated but didn’t overpower it at all.
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I really enjoyed this one and thought that the character of Gopi was particularly well done, given that it would be a bit of challenge to write from the perspective of a tween.
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Yes, it’s an age sort of between child and young adult isn’t it? But so well done.
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This one sounds very well done especially given the difficulty of writing about sport without putting people off if that’s not their bag, and writing from the perspective of such a young person. I did find the quotes moving and beautiful. You keep on picking them!
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So glad you liked the quotes! It’s a really accomplished novella.
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Thanks for reminding me of this one. I was impressed by her portrayal of the different ways grief affected members of the family.
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Absolutely, it was really carefully realised how everyone grieves so differently and individually.
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Yes!! That’s what I was going to say. (And I’m curious to see what might come next from the author.)
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Yes, I’ll definitely be looking out for what she does next.
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Another one that sounds too good to miss! It’s interesting about the squash tournament climax, I can see that as readers we might not need it because the characters are so well developed but I wonder if as a writer they felt they needed something to mould the ending? maybe it would take more confidence to just have the family drive the plot? just a thought while I think about writing!
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Yes absolutely – it does provide a thread to pull it along, but I too wondered if the author or editors felt it was necessary, which as a reader I didn’t think it was. But it works fine!
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You’ve reminded me that I want to get and read this!
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I hope you enjoy it Liz!
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I love a restrained supernatural element! I am very anti-sport, as opposed to just apathetic, so would have to weigh up if that would stop me enjoying this one…
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I promise the squash doesn’t detract Simon!
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I’m not a sporty person, either but I don’t mind if it’s an element in the plot (and I have in fact enjoyed sporty GA crime books). It sounds as if it was not quite essential here, but the book itself is intriguing!
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The squash element works well, but I didn’t think it needed the tournament at the end particularly. And thankfully as a reader you don’t have to know anything about the game!
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This does sound beautifully done, and I’m glad to hear a lack of interest in squash isn’t a barrier to enjoyment as that’s very much where I am too. (Tennis, love it; squash, no interest whatsoever!) I might give this a whirl as an audiobook just to see how I get on.
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Glad I’ve tempted you Jacqui, and the squash definitely isn’t a barrier! I think it could work well as an audiobook.
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