BOWLAWAY by Elizabeth McCracken

At the beginning of the 20th century, in Salford, Mass., Bertha Truitt is apparently beamed out of nowhere into a snow-covered cemetery, with 15 pounds of gold on her person.  Never do we find out how she came to be there nor how she came into possession of so much gold.  We do know that she uses some of that gold to build a candlepin bowling alley, and this establishment is the setting for most of this multi-generational novel.  At first, bowling seems to be a therapeutic release, particularly for the women in the novel.  Later, though, things spiral out of control.  The book is replete with grief-stricken and otherwise troubled characters, but, overall, I found the novel to be basically silly.  I found it impossible to develop any sort of empathy with the cartoonish characters that populate this book.  One character’s demise is as mysterious as Bertha’s origin, and we must assume, for the lack of any other explanation, that he spontaneously combusts.  Perhaps if the book were funnier, I would accept that the plot is not meant to be serious, but, instead, some truly serious things happen, although their treatment is not serious at all.  There are a few moments of delight, as when a new employee of the bowling alley is introduced as “seventeen-year-old Betty Graham, known as Cracker for her last name and because it suited her.”  After reading the book, I discovered that one particularly outlandish event that has a major impact on the storyline actually did occur.  Last year marked the 100th anniversary of a molasses tank explosion in Boston in 1919, which dumped 2.3 million gallons of sticky stuff on the city, destroying all manner of structures in its wake and killing 21 people.  Now that is fascinating.