Western Lane: Shortlisted For The Booker Prize 2023

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Interestingly, before embarking on her writing career, Chetna Maroo had worked as an accountant, a lesser-known facet of her professional journey.

In the aftermath of their mother’s death, a strangulated silence envelops the house Gopi shares with her older sisters, Mona and Khush. The tension is heightened by squash-obsessed, emotionally uncommunicative Pa; fearful Aunt Ranjan is the obstacle that stands in Gopi’s way. How does it feel to be nominated for the Booker Prize 2023, and what would winning the prize mean to you - especially as one of several debut novelists on the longlist? At the start of Chetna Maroo’s polished and disciplined debut, Gopi, an 11-year-old Jain girl who has just lost her mother, stands on a squash court outside London. Soon Gopi discovers a talent that draws the attention of Ged, the son of the club’s white manager, who becomes her training partner; and Maqsud, a Pakistani businessman and avid squash player who convinces Pa to enter his daughter into a tournament.The narrative of ‘Western Lane’ revolves around the life of an 11-year-old girl named Gopi and her intricate relationships within her family. It is not so much the shot itself that Gopi is hearing, but that echo, the empty reverb, the lonely response as the ball’s impact gives the striker a split second to retreat to the T, the center of the court, and prepare to counteract her opponent’s responding shot. After their increasingly strenuous training sessions, he and Gopi spend hours watching videos of the legendary athlete Jahangir Kahn and his rivals Geoff Hunt and Hiddy Jahan.

He said this, but with his eyes and his body – his shoulders, his throat, the white bones visible under his skin – he was telling us that in one day we had exposed him, left him behind, left him wide open to whatever was coming for him. Cautioned by a concerned relative to find a healthy outlet for his daughters, Pa turns the family’s casual weekly squash game at a local sports center into daily, determined training sessions.

Given the familiar storyline presented, The Guardian's Caleb Klaces noted that readers "might expect Western Lane to feel formulaic, but it doesn’t.