Bowlaway

Set in the small town of Salford, Massachusetts, American author Elizabeth McCracken’s novel Bowlaway (2019) tells the story of a candlepin bowling alley and the three generations of a quirky New England family whose lives revolve around it. A national bestseller, Bowlaway ended up on several best-of lists for 2019, including those published by Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Publishers Weekly, and O.

The novel opens by introducing Bertha Truitt, who seemingly appears out of nowhere one spring day in the Salford Cemetery. Discovering her unconscious near the obelisk, Joe Wear is convinced she was dead but has now returned to the land of the living. Leviticus Sprague, an African American doctor in town, confirms that Bertha is alive. She has in her possession a candlepin and a bowling ball—and several pounds of precious gold.

Once out of the hospital, Bertha is a woman on a mission: She starts building a candlepin bowling alley that she christens Truitt's Alley. She hires Joe to manage the place, and she names Jeptha Arrison, who recently attempted suicide, as the chief pinsetter. She soon marries Leviticus, a sensitive man who writes poetry and detests the bowling alley. They go on to have a daughter, Minna, who takes after her father.



When a vat at a molasses plant in nearby Boston explodes, Bertha is killed. Leviticus, thinking he is protecting their daughter, sends Minna away with her nanny, Margaret. He then moves into the residence over the bowling alley as a way to be as close as possible to Bertha's memory. He has Joe create an effigy of Bertha so she is always near. However, Leviticus meets his end when, one day, he spontaneously combusts.

With Bertha gone, Nahum Truitt, who says he is Bertha's son, takes over the bowling alley. He prohibits women from bowling there, but LuEtta Mood defies his ban and continues coming. He engages her in a one-on-one bowling contest, the winner of which will take ownership of the business. Though he claims he cannot bowl, Nahum beats her. Later, Nahum visits Joe in the latter's apartment over the alley, the two argue, and Joe subsequently disappears. Nahum leaves town shortly afterward, explaining that he is going to Maine to get his wife.

Weeks go by, and Nahum returns with his wife, Margaret, Minna's former nanny. They move into Joe's old apartment, and Margaret gives birth to two sons, Arch and Roy. Wracked with guilt and despair, Nahum finally confesses to Margaret that he wasn't Bertha's son, but her first husband. He wants to go back to Maine, and when Margaret refuses to accompany him, he leaves town. She ultimately raises Arch and Roy on her own. Arch is a rowdy kid who starts drinking early in his adolescence. By contrast, Roy always has his nose buried in a book, and he bears a strange resemblance to Leviticus.



When the war breaks out, Arch goes to fight while Roy stays at home and helps Margaret run the alley. He falls for one of the pinsetters, a young woman named Betty "Cracker" Graham. This relationship doesn't sit well with Margaret, who breaks Roy's ankles with a bowling ball after catching the two of them together. Roy leaves Salford, and Cracker and Arch start writing letters to each other. When Arch returns home, he and Cracker marry.

Roy goes to New York and tracks down Minna, who now lives there. She helps him find a job and attend college.

Arch and Cracker settle into married life. They buy a house after Cracker refuses to live over the bowling alley, and they move aging Margaret in with them. They have two daughters, Brenda and Amy. But happiness is fleeting; Arch is an alcoholic and has trouble staying faithful to Cracker. After seeing him hit on another woman, Cracker kicks him out. Arch then goes to New York to live with Roy, who recently lost his job as a college professor. The brothers decide to open their own candlepin bowling alley.



Back in Salford, Cracker and Margaret run Truitt's Alley. When Margaret starts showing signs of dementia, Cracker asks Arch to come home to see his mother. When he does, he and Cracker reunite as well.

When Arch is cleaning Margaret's room, he finds Bertha's will, in which she leaves the bowling alley to Joe Wear. Arch asks Margaret about it, but she doesn't remember how she came to own the place, and she has no memory of ever seeing the will. Arch yells at her, and the next day, still frightened by his outburst, Margaret takes the bus by herself to the bowling alley. She climbs onto the roof but cannot get down.

Several weeks pass with no sign of Margaret. Arch drinks to cope with the stress, and one night, after closing down a bar in town, he and a few other patrons go to the bowling alley to continue drinking. Once there, one of these fellow drinkers demands that Arch show him where the safe is, but Arch refuses, so the man kills him with a bowling ball. When the police arrive on the scene, they also discover Margaret's body on the roof.



Before he died, Arch told Roy about the will and how Truitt's Alley really belonged to Joe. Roy finds Joe, who is now rich and sophisticated with no use for a bowling alley. But before it's torn down, Joe pays a visit. Roy asks him if he knows the combination to the safe, where Roy thinks Bertha hid her gold. They open it and find the gold concealed under a false bottom. Roy wants Joe to have it, but he declines, so the two men give it to Cracker. Before he leaves, Joe finds the effigy of Bertha. It is the only thing he wants to take with him from Truitt's Alley.