Review | Hem and Football by Nalinaksha Bhattacharya

Hem and Football is a haunting, unpredictable, and at times surreal novel that resists easy classification. It begins with what seems to be a coming-of-age tale: Hem, a girl in Calcutta forced to change schools after a scandalous affair with a local barber, finds herself unexpectedly immersed in football. In a city that watches and judges, sport becomes a space of fleeting freedom and identity.

At her new school, Hem navigates social hierarchies in scenes reminiscent of Mean Girls, eventually finding belonging with a group of sporty girls whose impromptu football matches near the school gates ignite Hem’s passion. The early chapters suggest that football might offer her a way out, or at least a form of escape. It becomes a tantalizing symbol of autonomy, but one that’s frustratingly inconsistent in its presence throughout the book. Just as football begins to shape Hem’s path, it recedes from the narrative, never quite fulfilling the transformative promise it initially seems to hold.

What follows is a brutal pivot. Hem’s life veers into increasingly dark and absurd territory, beginning with a coerced marriage and culminating in abuse, destitution, and her husband’s disturbing mental regression into a childlike state, demanding to be breastfed. The tone shift is jarring, and while it reflects the randomness and cruelty of Hem’s fate, it leaves the reader disoriented, struggling to grasp the novel’s emotional throughline. Despite the traumas she experiences, including rape, Hem’s inner world remains largely opaque. There’s a striking lack of introspection, which makes the horrors she endures feel even more alienating and unresolved.

That said, Bhattacharya’s refusal to hand us a neat arc or emotional catharsis is part of what makes the book so memorable. Days after finishing it, I still find myself revisiting Hem’s story, questioning, replaying, reinterpreting. I’ve often wished for more stories about those whose dreams of sporting greatness are quietly extinguished, rather than glorified, and Hem and Football delivers just that. Still, I couldn't shake the hope that Hem might get a second chance: a tryout, a team, an escape. It’s to Bhattacharya’s credit that he withholds that easy redemption, even if it makes for a frustrating read.

Hem’s sexuality also remains a point of ambiguity. One of her schoolmates clearly loves her, but Hem’s feelings are left intentionally vague. Is she queer? Confused? Or simply starved of safe, affirming relationships? The novel offers no definitive answers, but the ambiguity lingers powerfully.

If there’s a weakness in the story, it lies in the plausibility of the husband’s regression. It’s a grotesque metaphor, certainly, a comment on male entitlement, on infantilized masculinity, but its execution borders on the surreal, and may stretch belief for some readers.

Ultimately, Hem and Football is a difficult, disturbing novel that refuses to play by the rules, of genre, of realism, or of readerly expectation. It’s not a triumphant sports story, nor a straightforward feminist tract. Instead, it’s something stranger and more unsettling: a portrait of a young woman trapped in a world that offers neither heroes nor victories.

And yet, I can’t stop thinking about it.