Our subject is love because our subject is bowling. Candlepin bowling.”
-- Narrator (Part 1, "The Found Woman")

Importance: This quote directly addresses the novel’s central motivators: love and bowling. The narrator metaphorically represents love through the game of bowling as the pins and ball long for each other but strike each other away. Bowling and love are inextricably linked for Bertha Truitt, who erects Truitt’s Alleys at the turn of the twentieth century. She believes that women should be allowed all the possibilities that life has to offer, and she loved bowling. Her boundless love and generosity infused into the Alleys provides a space for disparate people to form meaningful relationships in spite of the status quo. Bowling allows people a place to be themselves, to explore the beauty of humanity, just like love. And the bowling alley brings despair and hard times—elements of love, also. The importance of Candlepin underscores the culture of...