"The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" isn't a bowling term or a product. It's the title of a short story by J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, written in the 1940s and never officially published.
What the story is
The story belongs to Salinger's early writing about the Caulfield family, the family of Holden Caulfield, before The Catcher in the Rye made Holden famous in 1951. It features Kenneth, Holden's younger brother, a character often seen as an early version of Allie, the brother Holden mourns in the novel. The bowling balls of the title are an image from the story rather than a sport it's about.
In 1948, Knox Burger, the fiction editor of Collier's, praised the story highly, but it didn't appear in print. Salinger later withdrew from publishing altogether and kept tight control over his early work.
Why you can't easily read it
- Salinger chose not to publish it, and a copy is held by Princeton University's library under restricted access.
- In late 2013, a privately printed edition of three unpublished Salinger stories, including this one, surfaced online without permission. The leak was widely reported, but the story still hasn't been released officially.
- The text remains under copyright, so it can't be reproduced here.
Bowling in literature
Bowling appears in fiction more often than you might think, usually as a symbol of ordinary American life. Richard Brautigan built a whole novel around it; see Willard and His Bowling Trophies. For films, see bowling in movies.