Bowlaway Author:Elizabeth McCracken From the day she is discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century - with 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. Her mysterious origin scandalizes and intrigues the townspeople, as does her choice... more » to marry 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 as 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 Truit's Alleys. Soon it becomes clear that, even in her death, Bertha's defining spirit lives on, 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 a brilliant and epic unraveling of a family's myths and secrets, its passions and betrayals, the ties that bind and the rifts that divide.« less