"Broken for You": From the fragments of lonely lives, a family

"Broken For You," a debut novel by Seattle writer Stephanie Kallos, is a story of physical and spiritual healing that has some humor and grace along with a monster metaphor that grows so big it swallows the book.

Margaret Hughes is an elderly Seattle recluse who has recently been diagnosed with brain cancer. Margaret has been in self-imposed exile from humanity, living alone in her huge Capitol Hill mansion for decades.

A family tragedy, occurring when she was a young mother, has robbed Margaret of life's joy. Enter Wanda Schultz, a young woman who has come to Seattle looking for her errant boyfriend. Wanda takes a room in Margaret's home. Little by little, they become friends.

Margaret has an enormous collection of ceramic objects, collected by her late father, that turn out to have a checkered history.

A combination of events brings Margaret and Wanda into a relationship that goes well beyond individual friendship. They become partners in an enterprise both highly artistic and political and, I must add, very destructive to high-quality porcelain.

"Broken For You" is a romance for the Eleanor Rigbys of the world, those lonely people who find unexpected happiness by creating a surrogate family. However, there is nothing unexpected about this family.

Kallos nudges all her hurt souls into a fold as single-mindedly and smoothly as a veteran sheepdog. As she expands her "broken" metaphor to include a whole community, the result is a kind of cheerful camaraderie that is oddly cultist.

Kallos' best scenes are not found at the Hughes mansion or at the theater (The Rep) where Wanda works as a stage manager. They are found in bowling alleys — in 1960s Chicago and at the Aloha Lanes in Seattle's North End.

Her chapter titled "Bowling Together, 1959-1969" is an excellent short story. In fact, all the bowling stuff — characters and stories — is great.