Grief, loss and squash

It is always a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a debut South Asian woman writer, so I was very pleased to give this novel, which had been shortlisted for the 2023 Booker, a try. It begins with 11 year old Gopi, having just lost her mother. Gopi lives with her father and her 2 older sisters, Khush, 13, and Mona, 15. They live in England presumably though it is not specified; her father’s brother, Uncle Pavan, and his wife, Auntie Ranjan, live in Edinburgh, 4 hours drive north. They are diasporic British Indians, with their mum having relatives in Tanzania, and their father apparently having spent his childhood in Mombasa. Uncle Pavan and Auntie Ranjan are childless, so after the death of Gopi’s mother, they offer to take one of the girls into their home. 

Told by his sister-in-law after his wife’s death, that his daughters need exercise and discipline, Gopi’s father encourages his daughters to play a lot of squash in the local sports centre, on Western Lane, hence the title of the book. He begins to train them vigorously, perhaps as a response to grief and loss, using a famous Pakistani squash player, Jahangir Khan, as an inspiration. Gopi responds, though her older sisters are less interested, and begins to train diligently and frequently.  

We see the world through the eyes of 11 year old Gopi, a slightly unconventional Indian girl, who seems to move in a close circuit of her family members and the sports centre primarily. There are nosy neighbours as well as well-meaning relatives hovering on the periphery, and a gentle, withdrawn, but loving father. It is a loving family on the whole, but not one which knows how to communicate about emotions. A lot of the time, they seem to be guessing at what each other are thinking, but not putting it into words. And when the questions are asked, there are no answers forthcoming. Such as when the girls wonder if their father wants them to stay downstairs in the living room at night with him, rather than going upstairs to bed, when they finally asked, he does not answer, he just goes to bed. The novel is about a family grieving who try to get on with daily life as best they can, not having the language to communicate about their grieving and to grieve together. 

At 15 and being the eldest, Mona has more cares. She realises her father is failing to do his job as an electrician, often not turning up to work, and not bringing home enough money to keep them going. She tries to take on some jobs herself, but realises it hurts her father’s pride/dignity, although he does nothing to prevent her, or even hint at this. Much in this novel is unsaid, a lot of showing and not much telling, so it is well written in that sense. We realise Mona’s struggles only by catching glimpses of how things are not quite well, through Gopi’s 11 year old eyes.  

However, showing needs to be written in a way which is not too cryptic, rather, it should be a reveal for the benefit of the reader. A lot of this novel’s showing leaves the reader wondering what the significance might be of what they are reading – much is unexplained – which may be because the author wants the reader to experience Gopi’s perspective; but better writing would enable the reader to understand the significance while appreciating Gopi may well not. It is slightly frustrating when through a lot of the story, one is constantly wondering what the point is of the various events/episodes. Thankfully, it does grow less opaque towards the end. 

For most part, it is an easy, quick read, but one is tripped by the writing style occasionally, which has rather strange pieces of writing occasionally, such as when the girls come across a big dog they dislike, which they named Fourth Avenue because it comes from that direction.

“He was big and dark. He walked around the estate taking his time, with his big lousy head moving slowly and his tongue red and awful. […] Fourth Avenue came around the hill and began walking across the fort’s entrance like a brute, like he had nowhere to be, and the whole estate was his” (p24).

It is strange to read about a dog’s “lousy” head – in what way is it “lousy”? That seems a strange choice of adjective. Also, how does a dog have to walk to be “like a brute”? Another example of this rather odd writing: the girls are walking around a fair happily, and Maroo writes,

“People smiled at us with shining eyes” (p83).

This also jars a little – shining eyes?  

However, it is blessedly an uncliched piece of writing. The Indian sisters are not forced into being good girls, though there is awareness of society watching them, sometimes disapprovingly, and of their father’s floundering at how to bring up three girls on his own. The men are not traditional and macho; instead, they seem a little diffident, and very understanding. The relationship between the siblings is realistic, and there is just enough to catch glimpses of the girls’ very different personalities. I enjoyed the delicacy of touch with which this novel was spun. However, it needed to be more precise with its choice of words, and also perhaps make less veiled references and insinuations which the reader may not always be able to decipher. But for all that, it was a good study of a child who is having to find a new and less conventional way to live, having a pillar of her life suddenly removed.