Bowlaway

(Paperback)

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Description

A sweeping and enchanting new novel from the author of The Giant's House 'A big, glorious novel in every sense, this sprawling family saga.is a funny and big-hearted epic from a seriously gifted wordsmith' Marie Claire Read the sweeping and enchanting new novel from the author of The Giant's House Bertha is an enigma to everyone in Salford, Massachusetts - ever since she was discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery with nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin and fifteen pounds of gold on her person. She has no past to speak of, and her mysterious origin scandalises the townspeople, as does her choice to marry and start a family with Leviticus Sprague, the doctor who revived her. But Bertha is plucky and entrepreneurial, and the bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salford's most defining landmark. As she changes the town forever, her singular spirit resonating through every board and brick and bone, an epic family saga unfolds, set against the backdrop of twentieth-century America.

Reviews

McCracken is a firecracker stylist and every sentence, every image, is crafted for physical impact It is exuberant, a bit bonkers and raw and unflinching. It will find a great many fans and no doubt some awards, too. -- Lucy Atkins * Sunday Times *
A big, glorious novel in every sense, this sprawling family saga is a funny and big-hearted epic from a seriously gifted wordsmith. -- Samantha Irby * Marie Claire *
McCrackens rambunctious saga [Bowlaway] is a funhouse of a novel. Even the most incidental of characters are granted glorious vignettes in [an] unpredictable and startling world. -- Wendy Erskine * Spectator *
[McCracken has] considerable gifts as a novelist [and] instinctive access to the most intricate threads of human thought and feeling... This novels cast grows epic, but McCracken is always most impressive when she works small, when she is describing movie kisses or corsets or simply loneliness and longing. * New York Times *
Death and life, frosted with macabre comedy: its why weve enjoyed Elizabeth McCracken since her debut novel, The Giants House nothing is ordinary in this story Theres a wickedness to McCrackens technique, the way she lures us in with her witty voice and oddball characters but then kicks the wind out of us endlessly surprising. -- Ron Charles * Washington Post *

Author Bio

Elizabeth McCracken is the author of five books, Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry, The Giant's House (a National Book Award finalist), Niagara Falls All Over Again, the memoir An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imag-ination, and Thunderstruck & Other Stories (winner of the 2014 Story Prize, long-listed for the National Book Award). She has received grants and fellow-ships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and she was chosen as one of Granta's 20 Best American Writers Under 40. She has served on the faculty at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and currently holds the James Michener Chair for Fic-tion at the University of Texas at Austin.