Title: Western Lane*
Author: Chetna Maroo
Rating: 5 stars / 5 stars
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Favorite Quote: “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.” Maroo, Chetna. Western Lane. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023, pg. 81.
Review: I’ve enjoyed my Booker 2023 adventure so far (see here and here), but Western Lane is my first five star read of the year. (I’m currently reading another that might just join its ranks, but you’ll have to check back in a few weeks to see that review.) So let’s talk about it!
Western Lane follows a child/early teen Gopi as she becomes increasingly successful at squash in the face of her father’s all-encompassing grief over her mother’s death, her shifting and complicated relationships with her sisters, her developing feelings for a fellow squash player, and trying to figure out her place in the changing dynamics of her family - both immediate and extended.
This is a short novel, but it is brimming with feeling, which is perhaps appropriate given that early teen years can be angst-ridden even when true tragedy has not struck, as it has for Gopi and her family in light of her mother’s death.
The family dynamics in this book are portrayed with impressive precision - from the mourning, lost father, to the distant, hyper-responsible older sister, to Gopi, who is both the center of her father’s world (even as the tension between them develops as he sinks first into a depression and then begins finding his way again, but perhaps in a way that doesn’t meet his daughters’ approval) and, as the novel shows [SPOILER ALERT], seemingly dispensable when he allows his brother and his brother’s wife to assume her care and custody in the months leading up to the squash match that is set to define her future in the game.
The novel explores cultural expectations of femininity as well, especially once Gopi moves in with her aunt and uncle and the expectation that she stop playing squash becomes abundantly clear. And this is a tension that is never quite resolved because [ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT] Gopi wins, but the question of her future in the game lays unanswered as the novel comes to a close.
About that Quote: For a character that never fully appears in the contemporary storyline of the novel, Gopi’s mother plays an integral role in shaping the trajectory of the novel and the personalities of most of its central players. This quote embodies that presence. It also speaks to how that presence is used and perceived as the novel progresses.
Have you read Western Lane? Share your thoughts below!
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