Western Lane: Shortlisted For The Booker Prize 2023 by Chetna Maroo

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024

LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL AWARD 2023

'A beautiful and evocative novel about grief, about growing up, about losing and winning. The people and places in this book will stay with me for a long time.' – Sally Rooney

Selected by Dua Lipa as one of Service95's 'Books of the Year'

A 'Book of the Year' in The Economist, The Independent, The Week, The New York Times and The Guardian

A deeply moving novel about grief, sisterhood and a teenage girl'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.

Review

'Western Lane is a beautiful and evocative novel about grief, about growing up, about losing and winning. The people and places in this book will stay with me for a long time.' -- Sally Rooney

A slim, subtle debut novel of grief and growing up that conjures a powerful panoply of emotions ― The Economist, 'The Best Books of 2023'

Stunning . . . Spare, tender, brilliantly achieved . . . A novel that unfolds in silences . . . and dares to leave much unsaid. ― The Guardian

A deeply evocative debut about a family grappling with grief, conveyed through crystalline language -- The Judges of the Booker Prize

This gorgeous tale about a family reeling from loss stands out from the debut crowd… This quiet, elegantly compressed coming-of-age novel . . . operates most powerfully in the gaps outside the plot . . . Few novelists write this simply and richly. With this gorgeous debut, Maroo blows most of the competition off the court. ― The Times

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; Main Market edition (11 May 2023) Language ‏ : ‎ English Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 176 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529094623 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529094626 Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.4 x 2.3 x 22.4 cm