Author: Chatna Maroo
Published: 2023
Pages: 160
Prize: Recent Prize Short List (Shortlist, Man Booker 2023)
Project: Orpheus | fleeting nature of happiness | unaccepted death
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Chetna Maroo’s debut novel, Western Lane, tells the story of eleven-year-old Gopi, a squash prodigy who becomes deeply immersed in the sport after her mother’s death. As her father pushes her through a rigorous training regimen, Gopi drifts apart from her sisters, finding solace on the court. This evocative coming-of-age tale delves into grief, sisterhood, and self-discovery.
Complexity
CEFR: B2/C1
Plot Complexity: moderate
Language Complexity: moderate
Ideas Complexity: moderate
Blurb
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 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.
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