Bowlaway: A Novel

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. Her mysterious origin scandalizes the townspeople, as does her choice to marry the doctor who revived her. But Bertha is tenacious and entrepreneurial, and the bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salford’s defining landmark.

When Bertha dies in a freak accident, a heretofore-unheard-of son arrives in Salford, claiming he is heir apparent to Truitt’s Alleys. Soon it becomes clear that Bertha’s spirit lives on, infecting and affecting future generations through inheritance battles, murky paternities, and hidden wills.

Laced with insight and sharp humor, Bowlaway is a brilliant unraveling of a family’s myths and secrets, its passions and betrayals, and the ties that bind and the rifts that divide.