Western Lane
- Author Chetna Maroo
- Narrator Maya Saroya
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Run Time 4 hours and 22 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Coming of age, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Identity / belonging, Sports and Active outdoor recreation, Sports fiction, Squash and rackets (racquets).
Titles Purchased
- 1-5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-20
- Over 20
Price p/Title
- £15.99
- £14.99
- £13.99
- £12.99
- £11.99
Listen to a sample
What to expect
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.
An unforgettable coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel is a moving exploration of the closeness of sisterhood, the immigrant experience, and the collective overcoming of grief.
'Listeners will connect with this story of loss, cultural struggle, and the many stages of grief. Soroya pulls us closer to Gopi's truncated world as playing squash comes to replace the gaping losses in her life.' - AudioFile
'With this gorgeous debut, Maroo blows most of the competition off the court.' – The Times
'Feels like the work of a writer who knows what they want to do, and who has the rare ability to do it.' - The Guardian
Critics 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 -
Maroo’s quiet sentences contain multitudes on cultural tensions and grief, on the wordless love between a father and a daughter.
The Telegraph
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