In her latest novel, S.J. Laidlaw gives us a poignant story of two girls who share a city but lead vastly different lives. Grace enjoys the luxurious lifestyle of an expat, though her shyness prevents her from making friends easily and fitting in at the Mumbai International School. Her best friend, Tina, has recently moved away, and Grace is desperate to find a group she can hang out with. When Grace believes she’s being courted by a senior student, Todd, she’s flattered. Over a weekend of flirtatious texts, Grace falls victim to a cruel prank that reinforces the derision of her peers. Depressed, humiliated, and shunned, she eases her emotional pain by cutting herself. At one point, she seriously considers suicide.

A second plot strand follows Noor, the child of a sex worker in Mumbai, who is destined to suffer the same fate as her mother. Noor’s horrific story opens with her hiding under the bed while her mother services a client. Noor desperately tries to protect her siblings, Aamaal and Shami, from starvation, disease, and cruelty – which are the norm in Kamathipura, Mumbai’s red-light district. The only silver lining in her miserable existence is her mother’s insistence that Noor get an education. To avoid her daughter being treated as a pariah, Noor’s mother lies about her background when she enrolls the girl in a local school. When Noor rises to the top of her class, a jealous parent exposes her mother’s dark secret, almost getting Noor expelled.

Grace and Noor’s stories intertwine when the latter approaches an NGO to ask for help staying in school and Grace joins the same NGO to complete her community service hours. Impressed by Noor’s quiet demeanor and intelligence, Grace agrees to mentor her. As trust and friendship grow, the girls become an invaluable source of strength for each other.

The cast of characters is rounded out by Grace’s antagonists, Madison and Kelsey, and a local Bollywood star named VJ. Noor’s support system comprises her siblings; sex workers Deepa-Auntie and Lali-Didi; and her best friend, Parvati, who never quite recovers from being brutally raped.

Laidlaw skilfully weaves together Grace and Noor’s storylines through alternating chapters, told from each girl’s first-person point of view, which culminate in a satisfying conclusion. The setting is an on-the-ground view of Kamathipura, chilling in its authenticity. Laidlaw provides facts about the lives of sex workers without being excessively graphic or sentimental.

Noor is a strong, resourceful protagonist who steps up to the responsibility of caring for her siblings and escaping the sex trade herself, in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. By comparison, Grace’s cutting to ease the pain of rejection and ridicule make her appear the weaker of the two, though she does an exemplary job of coming to Noor’s rescue at the end. VJ, who also has a secret of his own, provides comic relief, but seems a bit too good to be true as the Samaritan who saves the day.

This is not an easy novel to read, but it’s an important one. The descriptions of life in Kamathipura are vivid, and the plight of the sex workers – forced into their circumstances by ruthless pimps and treated like chattel – is heartbreaking. Kudos to Laidlaw for capturing the essence of Mumbai’s underbelly with such empathy and accuracy. Fifteen Lanes showcases the strength of the human spirit in the most adverse of circumstances.