Midnight Bowling : A Novel

A Seventies-era teenaged girl must decide whether to follow her father’s bowling legacy or the coach who caused his career failure.

Tess Wycheski is a standout bowler, just like her father before her. And just like her father, she is haunted and driven by the famous, career-ending humiliation he suffered at his first pro match. Joe teaches Tess that bowling is an art form and tries to coach her toward the success that eluded him. Then there’s Leo Florida, the ex-hustler bowling coach who figured in Joe’s youthful tournament disaster. No one knows why Leo abandoned his star student and his coaching job, where he went or what he has been doing all these years. But now he’s back in Sandusky, Ohio, and offering to coach Tess with his hard-nosed, streetwise philosophy. “Everything that happens between people is a deal struck,” Leo tells Tess. “Maybe for money, maybe for something else. Myself, I watch the money. Better odds.” Can Tess trust Leo after what he did to her father? Tess wonders if Leo, for all of his tough-guy posturing, still harbors some secret pain from his past and maybe an unseen agenda for the future. As she uncovers the complicated lives of the adults around her, Tess has her own complications to confront as she finds herself falling for Leo’s nephew, Donny. Can she trust this new love? And what about her own legacy? As she hones her skills and her determination, will she be willing to trust herself, even if that means leaving everyone she knows and loves in order to follow her dreams? Set against the backdrop of the Galaxy Bowling Lanes in Sandusky, Ohio, in the 1970s and ‘80s—a time when working-class America, and its favorite sport, was rolling into decline—Midnight Bowling is a story of guts, gutter balls, and the imperfect power of love.