Ahead of her time and quirky heroine, Bertha Truitt is discovered in a cemetery with a bowling pin, gold and clothes and that's about it. And she's not talking about her life before that. She meets Joe Wear, Dr. Sprague, and Jeptha Arrison. Never one to fuss with idle time, Bertha marries the doctor and builds a candlepin bowling alley. She hires Joe and Jeptha and has a late in life baby, Minna. They hire Margret to care of Minna. Men and women enjoy the bowling until Bertha dies in a Molasses accident. What happens next resonates down through her family for decades. Will Joe Wear get the bowling alley? Will Minna find happiness? What happened to the Truitt gold? Will Margaret fall in love... stay tuned.

A lesson in creative writing.

I liked Bertha. I just wish there was more of her in the story.

what happened to Joe Wear. I thought Dr. Sprague and Nahum did him dirty.

take a moment and relax. Glad I was finished with it.

stressed out. I know life doesn't go exactly how people want it to sometimes but I thought the characters involved in the bowl away were incredibly stressed.

is Elizabeth McCracken and is know for her quirky, creative writing and characters.

it's definitely a good book to read and learn about character driven plots.

It took me a while to get through. I could only read a couple of chapters at a time before I had to decompress. It's not a page turner.

I was in Costco and found Bowlaway in the book pile. The premise of the story intrigued me as I grew up in New England with Candlepin bowling. I'm now in California with ten pins. I always enjoyed bowling and wanted to see what McCracken could do with the story.

McCracken has a quirky writing which suits the story, but requires the reader to pause and think about what's happening. In that regard, this was a slower read than I anticipated. The characters are interesting and kudos to Bertha for being ahead of her time. The bowling alley itself, also took on a life of it's own. As Bertha's family revolves around the alley, it's interesting to see how the life of the alley parallels the same course (or does it?) with Arch. There's a little bit reflection of times which is nice. The story is more driven by the characters than the plot. The ending is satisfactory to the story.

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Created Jan 09, 2020 at 4:07pm • Submit your own review...