A sweeping and enchanting new novel from the widely beloved, award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken about three generations of an unconventional New England family who own and operate a candlepin bowling alleyFrom the day she is discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century—nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin, and fifteen pounds of gold on her … pounds of gold on her person—Bertha Truitt is an enigma to everyone in Salford, Massachusetts. She has no past to speak of, or at least none she is willing to reveal, and her mysterious origin scandalizes and intrigues the townspeople, as does her choice to marry and start a family with Leviticus Sprague, the doctor who revived her. But Bertha is plucky, tenacious, and entrepreneurial, and the bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salford’s most defining landmark—with Bertha its most notable resident.
When Bertha dies in a freak accident, her past resurfaces in the form of a heretofore-unheard-of son, who arrives in Salford claiming he is heir apparent to Truitt Alleys. Soon it becomes clear that, even in her death, Bertha’s defining spirit and the implications of her obfuscations live on, infecting and affecting future generations through inheritance battles, murky paternities, and hidden wills.
In a voice laced with insight and her signature sharp humor, Elizabeth McCracken has written an epic family saga set against the backdrop of twentieth-century America. Bowlaway is both a stunning feat of language and a brilliant unraveling of a family’s myths and secrets, its passions and betrayals, and the ties that bind and the rifts that divide.
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As a girl in the 1950s, I grew up watching my grandmother bowl. It came about like this:
The fire department burned down the house across the street from us, an early 19th c house like ours, one built by a founding family in the area. It was scheduled to be demolished and the volunteer fire department decided to burn it as a training exercise.
My parents and I watched from our second-floor windows as the house became enveloped in orange flames that lit our faces, the heat nearly too much to stand. My father recorded it all on the home movie camera, bought at my brother’s birth, so I know it was around 1960 when the house was burned down.
In front of our house was the gas station built by my grandfather. What were they thinking of, starting a fire so close to gas pumps?
And on that newly vacated land, a bowling alley was built. My grandmother, who lived with us, joined a league and bowled with her lady friends. I would go with her to watch the games. I remember having to put on special shoes that always smelled funny. I recall the snack bar, the bright lights, the balls rolling back to us, and especially the noise of the balls knocking down the pins.
Once there was another kid at the alley with his grandmother. He talked about baseball the entire time. I don’t know why I listened, I had no interest in Little League or baseball–or in even boys.
Reading Elizabeth McCracken’s novel Bowlaway brought back those bowling alley memories. But the novel’s bowling is of a different sort than the nine pin I grew up watching.
Our subject is love because our subject is bowling. Candlepin bowling. This is New England, and even the violence is cunning and subtle. It still could kill you. A candlepin ball is small, two and a half pounds, four and a half inches in diameter, a grapefruit, an operable tumor. You heft it in your palm.
Our subject is love. Unrequited love, you might think, the heedless headstrong ball that hurtles nearsighted down the alley to get close before it can pick out which pin it loves the most, the pin it longs to set spinning. Then I love you! Then Blammo.
from Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken
There is it! In the first pages of the novel, the theme laid out for the observant reader to see. We become addicted to the very act that knocks us off our pins–Love–which can even kill us. Bowling as metaphor.
I loved this novel for the many lovely tricks of language and quirky descriptions.
Joe sat down on the bed and pulled the animal close, one of those accordion cats that got longer when you picked it up by the middle. from Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken
And how McCracken sums up things that knock you over with unexpected truthfullness–why didn’t I think of that? you wonder.
But sorrow doesn’t shape your life. It knocks the shape out. from Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken
McCracken tells us that this is a story about genealogy. We read about generations of the Truitt family and the people whose lives they touched.
Just before the turn of the century, a century ago, Bertha Truitt is discovered in a cemetery by Joe Wear, an orphan boy who works as a pin setter in a bowling alley. Bertha is attended to by another visitor to the cemetery, Dr. Sprague, an African American doctor with a penchant for deep thought–and drink.
Bertha has arrived with a candlestick bowling ball and pin and a pile of gold. She builds a candlestick bowling alley, hires Joe, and marries the doctor. The local women come to bowl. Bertha builds an octagonal house for her and the doctor and their daughter Minna.
But tragedy strikes (pun intended) in the form of a molasses flood. The doctor sends Minna away to his people and he slowly lets grief consume him. First, he and Joe fashion a Bertha doll with carved candlepin appendages and a stuffed body.
Joe had hoped to inherit the bowling alley, as Bertha once promised. It is assumed that everything goes to Minna, but she never returns. When a Mr. Truitt comes along saying he is Bertha’s heir, showing a family bible with the handwritten family births, he takes the alley over, banning females and marrying a local woman. Their children are yoked to the alley unwillingly.
When he was a young man the mysteries of the world seemed like generosity–you can think anything you want! Now the universe withheld things. from Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken
It is a story of revelations, sudden deaths, marriages, love, and how life slams lovers apart. The characters and plot may be Dickensian, but the truths are spot-on. As one character says, “Lady, lady. All sorts of things happen in this world. This is only one of them.”
I purchased the book from the publisher.
A masterfully written book. Pathos, wisdom and humor in every sentence!
Elizabeth McCracken’s Bowlaway is so deliciously weird and wise and alive. It’s a page-turner set in a bowling alley, a grief-haunted and hope-raddled book, and a gloriously fresh paean to the ‘perversity of love.’ I loved it — what a generous pour of humor and sorrow and wonder.
I tried to like this book. I gave up entirely when I was about halfway through. The characters were not engaging. The storyline was, wait, was there a storyline?
An unusual story with unusual characters. It won’t appeal to everyone, but I enjoyed it and recommend that you give it a try.
I love her writing. Book is another example of a fine author hitting her stride.
I found this book to be boring.
Review I loved this book a million reasons—the language, the characters, the storytelling, but most of all, for the way it expresses a love for Massachusetts—the candlepin bowling, the Peggy Lawton cookies, the great molasses flood, the Mary Jane candies—it was like reading a book made straight from my childhood obsessions. A total delight.