Emma recommends... Western Lane - Chetna Maroo

Emma recommends... This is just the most beautiful book - so much being conveyed in so few, but exquisitely chosen, words. If you are a fan of Claire Keegan then this is definitely one for you. If you don't know anything about squash, don't worry - me neither! But we all know something about loss, about growing up, about family, about identity. And this wonderful book explores all of that and more in an astonishing 176 pages...

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Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2023

A beautiful and moving novel about grief, sisterhood, squash 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.