"A sweeping and enchanting new novel from the widely beloved, award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken about three generations of an unconventional New England family who own and operate a candlepin bowling alley"-- Provided by publisher.

Bertha Truitt has always been an enigma to people in Salford, Massachusetts. She was discovered unconscious in a cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century-- nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin, and fifteen pounds of gold on her person. She marries and starts a family with Leviticus Sprague, the doctor who revived her. The bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salfords most defining landmark. When Bertha dies in a freak accident, her heretofore-unheard-of son arrives, claiming Truitt Alleys. This begins generations of inheritance battles, murky paternities, and hidden wills. -- adapted from jacket