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Western Lane

A Novel

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Western Lane

Written by: Chetna Maroo
Narrated by: Maya Saroya
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Summary

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A taut, enthralling first novel about grief, sisterhood, and a young athlete's struggle to transcend herself.

"Few novelists write this simply and richly. With this gorgeous debut, Maroo blows most of the competition off the court." —The Times


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.
Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Sports
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The book goes on and on about random ramblings without any anchoring/timeline details. Every sentence is written as if it’s important until it ends and you realize it’s just a random statement.

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