Bertha Truitt

Bertha Truitt is the most influential character in the novel. She is found unconscious in the Salford Cemetery in her divided skirt with a gladstone bag. In her bag is her corset, a candlepin, a bowling ball, and 15 pounds of gold in a false bottom. Bertha is a “pleasant plump woman,” “a matron, jowly, bosomy, bottomy, odd” (9). But her smile is youthful and “full of joy” (9). Bertha’s passion in life is Candlepin bowling, a game unique to New England, which she claims to have invented. After being discharged from the hospital, Bertha commissions Irish immigrants to help build her bowling alley that would come to be known reverently as Truitt’s Alleys.

Bertha lives untethered by the social laws that govern women’s lives in her time. With the conviction and wealth to live her life the way she wants, Bertha dismisses the judgement she receives...