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Critics' Opinion:
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First Published:
Feb 2019, 384 pages
Paperback:
Nov 2019, 384 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Sarah Tomp
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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 alley.
From 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 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.
1
The Found Woman
They found a body in the Salford Cemetery, but aboveground and alive. An ice storm the day before had beheaded the daffodils, and the cemetery was draped in frost: midspring, Massachusetts, the turn of the century before last. The body lay faceup near the obelisk that marked several generations of Pickersgills.
Soon everyone in town would know her, but for now it was as though she'd dropped from the sky. A woman, stout, one bare fist held to her chin, white as a monument and soft as marble rubbed for luck. Her limbs were willy-nilly. Even her skirt looked broken in two along its central axis, though it was merely divided, for cycling. Her name was Bertha Truitt. The gladstone bag beside her contained one abandoned corset, one small bowling ball, one slender candlepin, and, under a false bottom, fifteen pounds of gold.
The watchman was on the Avenue of Sorrows near where the babies were interred when he spotted her down the hill in the frost. He was a teenager, ...
McCracken's lush and original writing is the novel's greatest strength, and will appeal to readers willing to while away time hanging out in a local gathering spot. The omniscient narrative tone is somewhat distant and reflective, and yet the details chosen are wonderfully specific and surprising...continued
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(Reviewed by Sarah Tomp).
Karen Russell, author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: And Other Stories
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.
Bowling as a sport is arguably more familiar than it is popular. Top competitors and heroes of the sport are not typically household names, yet most people have a basic understanding of how it's played. Even without famous athletes promoting it, bowling is a steady component of modern culture. However, there has been a decline in its popularity since the 1970s (having reached its peak in the 1950s-60s). From 1998-2013, the number of bowling alleys in the U.S. fell from 5,400 to 3,976 (a 26% decrease).
Accessibility has always been part of bowling's appeal. For a relatively inexpensive cost, the same venue and tools are used by competitive and casual bowlers, sometimes even side-by-side. Although it does not have the same spectator draw ...
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