Western Lane

"""This excellent debut lives in the small moments . . . Maroo's calm, steady prose is so attuned to its subject matter it barely needs lyrical adornment . . . Few novelists write this simply and richly. With this gorgeous debut, Maroo blows most of the competition off the court."" --Claire Allfree, The Times (UK) ""[Western Lane] feels like the work of a writer who knows what they want to do, and who has the rare ability to do it . . . Maroo has a talent for making the space she needs for emotional complexity by way of physical description."" --Caleb Klaces, The Guardian (UK) ""A rich correspondence between the rituals of grief and competition . . . Melancholy is only one of the moods of this short but brimming book. Squash is also a channel for Gopi's rage; for connections with other players and her longsuffering father; and for a joyous kind of freedom of expression . . . Maroo's writing achieves its most graceful rhythms and prescient insights. You'll want to applaud."" --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal ""Polished and disciplined . . . The beauty of Maroo's novel lies in [its] unfolding, the narrative shaped as much by what is on the page as by what's left unsaid . . . In this graceful novel, the game of squash becomes a way into Gopi's grief and her attempts to process it."" --Ivy Pochoda, The New York Times Book Review ""A poignant illustration of the power of sports to help a family deal with grief--and each other--as they gradually make their way out of the darkness . . . [Maroo] is a marvelous and restrained storyteller."" --Shahina Piyarali, Shelf Awareness ""Maroo's tale traverses the complexities of one family with an understated beauty, simultaneously graceful and teeming with fierceness, much like Gopi on the court. It is a powerful coming-of-age story, a tale of growing up as much as a tale of grief."" --Abeje Schnake, Booklist ""Compact and powerful . . . This will invigorate readers."" --Publisher's Weekly ""Subtle and elegant . . . Gopi's retrospective narration accumulates slow layers of heartbreak as the story proceeds, patiently building up an entire landscape of emotion through gestures, silences, and overheard murmurings in the dark. A debut novel of immense poise and promise."" --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ""Starting off as an intimate tone poem, this story of a squash-obsessed teenager expands into something with the amplitude, depth, and ringing power of a great symphony. In other words--WOW. Western Lane is glorious. You'll want to read it over and over again."" --Aravind Adiga, author of Amnesty ""Combining the precision and the efficiency of an athlete with the mysteries of childhood loss and memory, Western Lane is a novel in which we linger on every breathing line and relish every close observation. What an exceptionally talented writer Chetna Maroo is!"" --Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose"