Down at the Bowl: A Novel

by Evans, Theresa Marie

Evans, Theresa Marie. M.A., Department of English Language and Literatures, Wright State University, 2007. Down at the Bowl: A Novel. Novel set in late-1970s Cincinnati, on its traditionally conservative, Catholic west side. Karen is a sheltered seventeen-year-old girl, who gets a job bussing tables at a bowling alley restaurant. Unlike the friends she has struggled to fit in with throughout high school, Karen finds she is immediately welcomed into the group of teenagers who work there. She tries to become more street smart like her new friends, but finds herself jolted by their casual attitudes towards drinking, drugs, and sex. Along with the coming-of-age theme, the story addresses issues of homosexuality in a time when gays were just beginning to come out publicly. Karen struggles with her search for truth and love against the seventies’ backdrop of social upheaval and economic insecurity. While the subjects are serious, the first-person narrator has a sense of humor and enduring hope that reflects the bittersweet and fleeting nature of teenage melodrama.