It’s the first Saturday of the month, which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.
This month we’re starting with Western Lane by Chetna Maroo.
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 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 indelible coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel captures the ordinary and annihilates it with beauty. Western Lane is a valentine to innocence, to the closeness of sisterhood, to the strange ways we come to know ourselves and each other.
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I struggled to get started with this month’s chain; I don’t read many books about sports and couldn’t find any inspiration in the book’s description. Eventually, I decided to use the word ‘lane’ as my first link – another word for lane can be street, which leads me to The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby (1). I loved this 1924 novel about a young woman searching for independence and happiness in a small Yorkshire village as World War I approaches.
The Holtby novel is set partly in Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast. So is Big Sky by Kate Atkinson (2), the fifth and most recent novel in the Jackson Brodie crime series. It begins with a recreation of a naval battle on the lake in Scarborough’s Peasholm Park then moves on to other coastal towns such as Whitby and Bridlington where private investigator Jackson is on the trail of a client’s cheating husband. Like the other books in the series, this one is more about the characters than the crimes being committed, but I think that’s why I enjoy them so much.
From Kate Atkinson to a different author with the same first name: Kate Summerscale. I’ve read several of her books, but the one I’m going to link to here is The Haunting of Alma Fielding (3). This is a nonfiction book based on the true story of Alma Fielding who claims to be the victim of paranormal activity in 1930s London. Nandor Fodor of the International Institute for Psychical Research begins to investigate, but are there really poltergeists at work in the Fielding household or is it an elaborate fraud? I enjoyed this one but felt that Alma’s story wasn’t really substantial enough to fill a whole book.
Poltergeists also feature in The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (4), which is set in an old country house in post-war Britain. This book is a work of fiction but, like the Summerscale one, the story is ambiguous – is Hundreds Hall really haunted or is there another explanation? We are given some answers, but the ending leaves a lot open to interpretation and I was still trying to make sense of it days later. Genuinely spooky and one of my favourites by Sarah Waters.
Another book with a shared word in the title is Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith (5), in which two men meet on a train and find themselves plotting two perfect murders. I read this classic psychological thriller earlier this year and enjoyed it, despite both main characters being very unlikeable, particularly the psychopathic Bruno! This was my first Patricia Highsmith book and I do plan to read more eventually.
Miranda, the heroine of M.M. Kaye’s Death in Berlin (6), is on a train journey at the beginning of the novel when one of the passengers is murdered. The mystery continues to deepen when Miranda arrives at her destination, Berlin, a city trying to recover in the aftermath of World War II. This is one of a series of Death In… suspense novels by Kaye, all set in different locations around the world. Death in Kashmir is my favourite, but I did love the portrayal of an eerie postwar Berlin in this one.
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And that’s my chain for November! My links have included: lanes and streets, Scarborough, authors with the name Kate, poltergeists, the word ‘Stranger’ and books set on trains.
In December we’ll be starting with Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.
She Reads Novels 
That first link is great! I’ve read four of these. Love the ‘strange’ link.
Thank you – I’m glad you liked that one!
Great links!
Thanks!
I do like that Yorkshire link, particularly as an ardent Kate Atkinson fan!
I love Kate Atkinson’s books but still need to catch up on her most recent ones!
I enjoyed reading your chain. I also found it difficult to get started too until I remembered that the main character in Saturday is also a squash player. The only books in your chain that I’ve read are Death in Berlin and Little Stranger both of which I enjoyed. But Big Sky and Strangers on a Train are TBRs that I’ve been meaning to read for ages.
It wasn’t an easy starting point this month! I hope you enjoy Big Sky and Strangers on a Train when you eventually read them.
Yes, sometimes we need to be a touch creative with our first link and then everything else starts to fall into place. Lovely chain here!
Thanks! Yes, the rest of my chain came together easily after I thought of that important first link.
I’m planning on reading ‘Strangers on a Train’ early next year, along with a bunch of other train related novels – about half of them Classics.
That sounds like an interesting project. I’ve read quite a few ‘train’ books and they all seem to be crime novels – The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White and Murder on the Orient Express, The Mystery of the Blue Train and 4.50 from Paddington, all by Agatha Christie come to mind!
I liked the street/lane link you started with, and also that you brought in some haunting/spooky themes for Witch week. I must get to MM Kaye’s Death in books soon. I’ve read The Far Pavillions but not the mysteries so far.
The Death In books are great – very atmospheric and with a wonderful sense of place.
Nice chain. Good solution to the first link. I’ll take a look for the Death in… books
I highly recommend the Death In… books. They’re all very atmospheric and have great settings.
I know I’ll try the Kashmir one and probably others.
Very cleverly done, as usual. BTW, I love the new design of the page.
Thank you, Carmen! I’m glad you like the new design.
Great chain! And I hadn’t realized Hitchcock’s movie was based on this Highsmith’s book until a couple of years ago.(yet to read the book though). Seeing a lot of Kate Atkinson (as well as Christie) today on various chains (again without much overlap surprisingly!)..
The Little Strangers sounds so very spooky and though I normally don’t read such books, it is intriguing me enough to go look for it.
<a href=”https://www.ladyinreadwrites.com/from-western-lane-to-east-of-the-sun-and-more/”>My post is here</a>
I still haven’t seen the Hitchcock film but I would be interested in watching it now that I’ve read the book, to see how different or similar it is. The Little Stranger is great, but definitely a very spooky read!