Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCraken is set in New England at the turn of the twentieth century. Full of all sorts of unusual characters starting with Bertha Truitt who appears out of nowhere passed out in the cemetery one day with nothing but a bowling ball, a candle pin and some bars of gold.

From there the story unfurls and twists and turns and comes back on itself eventually through several generations of Truitts. McCraken’s writing is truly original, an unexpected delight on every page. This was almost enough for me, but the story and the characters just never developed deeply enough for me to really care about, and good writing only goes so far; by the end it even felt a bit tedious. Not my favorite book, but a unique and entertaining read nonetheless, and it did make me want to go bowling.