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greenikat89's review against another edition
4.0
3.5/5 rounded to 4. Many different characters and felt a little like Homegoing in that the narrative flowed from one generation to another. It had sort of a folklore feel to it. I didn't mind that it was centered around a bowling alley (unusual setting).
thishannah's review against another edition
Reading this was a pleasurable if not totally awe-inspiring experience. It felt like a cozy cup of tea.
lindsayclaire's review against another edition
3.0
Started off strong but completely lost me half way through.
caseyjayner's review against another edition
Boring to me, just not my taste at this time.
nglofile's review
4.0
3.5 stars. I didn't love this as much as I'd hoped, but I liked it more than I realized.
The first chapter, especially the opening scene, is perfection. Oddball and wonderful, queuing up for a ride that I had no idea where it might go, the discovery of Bertha Truitt in a cemetery by Joe and Leviticus was a tease for which I was all in. The vignettes of the town characters - and they are indeed characters - were tantalizing because among the rife eccentricities there are undercurrents of melancholy. Several reviewers have invoked the word quirky, which isn't wrong per se, but to me that conveys a lightness that isn't quite accurate. One reader referenced a Pushing Daisies feel, which is absolutely my candy, and I might add a nod to Stars Hollow, but neither is a perfect reference point. The world of Bowlaway is entirely its own.
The most common descriptor I note in reader reviews is sprawling, but the writing is so sharp and fearless that I cannot echo that a lack of focus is the issue. McCracken may be strolling through streets and homes and years, but she knows her path. The wry tone telegraphs that every step is intentional.
By far the candlepin bowling establishment as centerpiece for the town held greatest fascination, with angles both for those who created and ran it as well as those who make it their own. This is what tempts me to return.
audiobook note: In many respects, the legendary Kate Reading is the ideal choice for narration. She is adept at conveying the golden combination of gentility and moxie that equally evokes both historical era and independence of spirit. The pacing was sometimes more languid than I might have wished, but that likely reveals more about my state of mind than the work itself.
The first chapter, especially the opening scene, is perfection. Oddball and wonderful, queuing up for a ride that I had no idea where it might go, the discovery of Bertha Truitt in a cemetery by Joe and Leviticus was a tease for which I was all in. The vignettes of the town characters - and they are indeed characters - were tantalizing because among the rife eccentricities there are undercurrents of melancholy. Several reviewers have invoked the word quirky, which isn't wrong per se, but to me that conveys a lightness that isn't quite accurate. One reader referenced a Pushing Daisies feel, which is absolutely my candy, and I might add a nod to Stars Hollow, but neither is a perfect reference point. The world of Bowlaway is entirely its own.
The most common descriptor I note in reader reviews is sprawling, but the writing is so sharp and fearless that I cannot echo that a lack of focus is the issue. McCracken may be strolling through streets and homes and years, but she knows her path. The wry tone telegraphs that every step is intentional.
By far the candlepin bowling establishment as centerpiece for the town held greatest fascination, with angles both for those who created and ran it as well as those who make it their own. This is what tempts me to return.
audiobook note: In many respects, the legendary Kate Reading is the ideal choice for narration. She is adept at conveying the golden combination of gentility and moxie that equally evokes both historical era and independence of spirit. The pacing was sometimes more languid than I might have wished, but that likely reveals more about my state of mind than the work itself.
erinz's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is a book for folks who like stories about oddballs, misfits and outcasts.
lgindc's review against another edition
3.0
What an odd, rambling book. It covers many generations of a family whose eccentric matriarch appears out of nowhere in a small Massachusetts town and opens a candlepin bowling alley. The characters are by turns amusing and sorrowful, envious and boastful, and a series of wacky (often disastrous) things befall them. First novel I've read with a central character who spontaneously combusts. But there was no plot and I got tired of it. McCracken is a terrific writer and storyteller, but I liked The Hero of this Book and Thunderstruck much better.
jmooremyers's review against another edition
4.0
The eyelashes of the dozing are always full of meaning and beauty, telegraph wires for dreams, and hers were no different. (p 5)
... nestling birds lamented the coarse new immigrants in their neighborhood, like them bipedal but unwilling or unable to fly. (p 11)
She was the oddest combination of the future and the past anyone had ever seen. (p 17)
What she wanted was a kind of greatness that women were not allowed. If they were allowed a small measure of it, they had to forsake love. She forsook nothing. (p 21)
In his way he had loved her not from the moment he saw her in the frost but from the moment she had looked at him and he had understood she might love him back. Love him back came first: he was a cave, happy to be a cave, and she a swung lantern come to light him up. (p 27)
In the mornings he would walk. ... At the start of a walk, alone and moving, the sun at his back or cold rain down his collar, he was more himself than under any other circumstance, until he had walked so far he was not himself, not a self, but had joined the world. Invisibly joined. Had religion been founded on this, purely this, he would have converted. Proof of God? Proof was in the world, and the way you visited the world was on foot. ... Your walking was a devotion. Most days he rose early and left Bertha behind, asleep, and walked for three hours and was back to fix her breakfast. What happened in those hours? O only the shift from the sky dark and aerated with stars to the layered morning light to the sun gilding the river and regilding the already gilded dome of the courthouse, only the invention of morning ... (p 44)
You're never too good for the things you love, no matter how low. (p 67)
Did a child need secrets? Yes, Bertha believed; everybody needed dark thoughts, they were the lime in the mortar of your head. (p 69)
He'd always laughed at his Irish aunt's clinging to the scraps of linen that had come over with her (handkerchiefs, soiled napkins), but now understood that you clung to what survived. If it had survived, it was durable enough. It might be the making of you. (p 96)
They had been in Canada a long time already and had more Canada to go: Margaret, from Massachusetts, found this upsetting. The bigger the place, the more claustrophobic. (p 177)
Orphaned, taken in. Alone, married. She did not know who she was. Her soul was a goldfish, a little thing inside the bowl of her body. She always had to concentrate to find it before she said her prayers. (p 187)
Maybe better that way, to not know our parents, to love them as we move away from them -- they're on the shore and we're on a ship, moving away; later we will switch places as they sail away from us, and we say to them, a little longer. (p 223-224)
'I don't deal in hypotheticals,' said Roy. 'I believe in science.' 'I thought science was all about hypotheses,' said Arch. (p 229)
They felt, reading each other's letters, known; they believed that being known made them over into their best selves. (p 272)
Cracker held still and waited. She always had. Once somebody came close, then she could love, she was a pond of love, a lake. Depthless, she believed. ... If you came to her with love, she loved you. Even as a mother it was her way. That's why you hold still. It's a kind of camoflage, a blending into the native tree bark: I don't care, I don't care, love me or don't. You better love me. (p 294-295)
His mother came to see him twice a day. As usual her fury manifested in frightening good cheer. (p 303)
He said aloud, 'I've gone mad.' If you've gone mad you don't know it. But what if you say it aloud? (p 305)
What a thing, to marry into a family! What could be more perilous? And yet people did it all the time. They married and had children, every child a portmanteau, a mythical beast, a montage. (p 310)
When he was a young man the mysteries of the world seemed like generosity -- you can think anything you want! Now the universe withheld things. It was like luck. Luck once meant anything could happen. Now it meant he was doomed. (p 333)
What would like like for your birthday, Grandma? Oh, nothing, she would say. Or, I'll love anything you give me. A lie. Since childhood she'd only ever wanted one thing: a box filled with a substance she couldn't imagine that would change her life. (p338)
Joe Wear put his arms out like divining rods and breathed in. He shut his eyes. 'Here's where my counter was,' he said. 'I remember that counter. How's it feel?' 'Can't tell. Like nothing. Like I was never here.' 'Story of my life,' said Roy Truitt. (p 369)
'"I wish to remain a mystery.' 'To yourself?' 'Particularly.' What Arch had liked about the unseen world: you could think about it but you could never solve it. Mysteries were full of promise, were a pleasure to contemplate. Facts were disappointing, and Roy had put all of his stock in facts and had been, all his life, disappointed. (p 370)
Her skirt was split down the middle, for cycling; her limbs were willy-nilly. Stretched out on the darkened pinball machine, she looked as though she had just dropped out of the sky. She should: she had. We all fall out of the sky. That's where we come from. (p 371)
... nestling birds lamented the coarse new immigrants in their neighborhood, like them bipedal but unwilling or unable to fly. (p 11)
She was the oddest combination of the future and the past anyone had ever seen. (p 17)
What she wanted was a kind of greatness that women were not allowed. If they were allowed a small measure of it, they had to forsake love. She forsook nothing. (p 21)
In his way he had loved her not from the moment he saw her in the frost but from the moment she had looked at him and he had understood she might love him back. Love him back came first: he was a cave, happy to be a cave, and she a swung lantern come to light him up. (p 27)
In the mornings he would walk. ... At the start of a walk, alone and moving, the sun at his back or cold rain down his collar, he was more himself than under any other circumstance, until he had walked so far he was not himself, not a self, but had joined the world. Invisibly joined. Had religion been founded on this, purely this, he would have converted. Proof of God? Proof was in the world, and the way you visited the world was on foot. ... Your walking was a devotion. Most days he rose early and left Bertha behind, asleep, and walked for three hours and was back to fix her breakfast. What happened in those hours? O only the shift from the sky dark and aerated with stars to the layered morning light to the sun gilding the river and regilding the already gilded dome of the courthouse, only the invention of morning ... (p 44)
You're never too good for the things you love, no matter how low. (p 67)
Did a child need secrets? Yes, Bertha believed; everybody needed dark thoughts, they were the lime in the mortar of your head. (p 69)
He'd always laughed at his Irish aunt's clinging to the scraps of linen that had come over with her (handkerchiefs, soiled napkins), but now understood that you clung to what survived. If it had survived, it was durable enough. It might be the making of you. (p 96)
They had been in Canada a long time already and had more Canada to go: Margaret, from Massachusetts, found this upsetting. The bigger the place, the more claustrophobic. (p 177)
Orphaned, taken in. Alone, married. She did not know who she was. Her soul was a goldfish, a little thing inside the bowl of her body. She always had to concentrate to find it before she said her prayers. (p 187)
Maybe better that way, to not know our parents, to love them as we move away from them -- they're on the shore and we're on a ship, moving away; later we will switch places as they sail away from us, and we say to them, a little longer. (p 223-224)
'I don't deal in hypotheticals,' said Roy. 'I believe in science.' 'I thought science was all about hypotheses,' said Arch. (p 229)
They felt, reading each other's letters, known; they believed that being known made them over into their best selves. (p 272)
Cracker held still and waited. She always had. Once somebody came close, then she could love, she was a pond of love, a lake. Depthless, she believed. ... If you came to her with love, she loved you. Even as a mother it was her way. That's why you hold still. It's a kind of camoflage, a blending into the native tree bark: I don't care, I don't care, love me or don't. You better love me. (p 294-295)
His mother came to see him twice a day. As usual her fury manifested in frightening good cheer. (p 303)
He said aloud, 'I've gone mad.' If you've gone mad you don't know it. But what if you say it aloud? (p 305)
What a thing, to marry into a family! What could be more perilous? And yet people did it all the time. They married and had children, every child a portmanteau, a mythical beast, a montage. (p 310)
When he was a young man the mysteries of the world seemed like generosity -- you can think anything you want! Now the universe withheld things. It was like luck. Luck once meant anything could happen. Now it meant he was doomed. (p 333)
What would like like for your birthday, Grandma? Oh, nothing, she would say. Or, I'll love anything you give me. A lie. Since childhood she'd only ever wanted one thing: a box filled with a substance she couldn't imagine that would change her life. (p338)
Joe Wear put his arms out like divining rods and breathed in. He shut his eyes. 'Here's where my counter was,' he said. 'I remember that counter. How's it feel?' 'Can't tell. Like nothing. Like I was never here.' 'Story of my life,' said Roy Truitt. (p 369)
'"I wish to remain a mystery.' 'To yourself?' 'Particularly.' What Arch had liked about the unseen world: you could think about it but you could never solve it. Mysteries were full of promise, were a pleasure to contemplate. Facts were disappointing, and Roy had put all of his stock in facts and had been, all his life, disappointed. (p 370)
Her skirt was split down the middle, for cycling; her limbs were willy-nilly. Stretched out on the darkened pinball machine, she looked as though she had just dropped out of the sky. She should: she had. We all fall out of the sky. That's where we come from. (p 371)
krabinovitz's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
heather_g's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.25
After a rough start, the story warmed up, following several different people, all connected to each other, multiple generations, starting with Bertha who built and ran a candle pin bowling alley. Many unique characters, several odd side stories too. The end was a bit underwhelming but the writing did grow on me.