Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
Hannah Tinti’s thriller-cum-family-drama is a pacy, modern homage to the 12 labours of Hercules rewritten around the twelve bullet wounds on Samuel Hawley’s body. Hawley is a reticent, gun-toting, widower roaming the USA with his young daughter. As Loo becomes a teenager they finally find some measure of stability, returning to the aptly-named Olympus, hometown of her mother’s youth, but it is far from plain-sailing.
Hawley’s past is shady and blood-stained and Loo knows only that her mother drowned when she was still an infant. The only evidence that remains of her place in their lives is the strange collection of ephemera (receipts, snapshots, old toiletries) from which Hawley creates a strange, poignant shrine in each of their temporary homes. Their nomadic life has not been the most bred a streak of anger teenaged Loo (taught to shoot aged twelve) which sometimes explodes into violence when she is targeted by bullies. The story may be the twelve lives of Samuel Hawley but it also a coming-of-age drama about growing up on the periphery with a life and a code of conduct that doesn’t always conform to the expectations of others.
Interspersed with the events of their current life in small-town America are the stories of Hawley’s twelve scars. His precise role remains unclear but he is caught in a cycle of theft and violence that he struggles to escape, even after he has a family of his own. He’s an enigmatic, thoughtful character with no real taste for violence despite the violent acts he commits. His love for Loo is a strong current in the book, even when his methods are questionable and sometimes stray into clichéd “over-protective father” territory. The mysteries that surround his past are intriguing and the bursts of action and keep the pages turning nicely, even if I would have liked to get into his headspace a little more than Tinti allows, particularly in the flash-back sections where Loo is not our main viewpoint.
It’s an engaging, cinematic tale (I’d be very surprised if the film rights don’t get snapped up) about a small, imperfect family surviving on the margins of society. It reveals violence as a complex thing, sometimes chosen, sometimes inescapable but not always definitive. There’s a tough sort of heart at its root and a deep, prickly love between a father and daughter.
Hawley’s past is shady and blood-stained and Loo knows only that her mother drowned when she was still an infant. The only evidence that remains of her place in their lives is the strange collection of ephemera (receipts, snapshots, old toiletries) from which Hawley creates a strange, poignant shrine in each of their temporary homes. Their nomadic life has not been the most bred a streak of anger teenaged Loo (taught to shoot aged twelve) which sometimes explodes into violence when she is targeted by bullies. The story may be the twelve lives of Samuel Hawley but it also a coming-of-age drama about growing up on the periphery with a life and a code of conduct that doesn’t always conform to the expectations of others.
Interspersed with the events of their current life in small-town America are the stories of Hawley’s twelve scars. His precise role remains unclear but he is caught in a cycle of theft and violence that he struggles to escape, even after he has a family of his own. He’s an enigmatic, thoughtful character with no real taste for violence despite the violent acts he commits. His love for Loo is a strong current in the book, even when his methods are questionable and sometimes stray into clichéd “over-protective father” territory. The mysteries that surround his past are intriguing and the bursts of action and keep the pages turning nicely, even if I would have liked to get into his headspace a little more than Tinti allows, particularly in the flash-back sections where Loo is not our main viewpoint.
It’s an engaging, cinematic tale (I’d be very surprised if the film rights don’t get snapped up) about a small, imperfect family surviving on the margins of society. It reveals violence as a complex thing, sometimes chosen, sometimes inescapable but not always definitive. There’s a tough sort of heart at its root and a deep, prickly love between a father and daughter.
This was my book club picked & I honestly enjoyed it immensely. It was different than most other books
Tinti's novel is addictive. Hawley and Loo are a father and daughter attempting to outrun their past while caught up in a cycle of love and violence, secrets and half truths. Each grieves wife and mother, Lily, and neither of them can move on without acknowledging how Lily died. Hawley's string of bad choices and good luck has produced the titular "twelve lives" or scars that cover his body. Each represents a part of Hawley's story that must unfold in its entirety so that his daughter can accept who he is and the choices that have dictated the course of her young life. This story is Hawley's past meeting Loo's coming-of-age.
This book is unlike my usual reading choices, but it was a must read with Hannah Tinti's name attached. Her characters are real, flawed, and complex. The writing is compelling and visceral. I don't enjoy novels with graphic violence and yet the brutality was necessary, raw, and brilliantly written. I fell in love with Hawley and Loo. Their search for love and freedom is timeless.
This book is unlike my usual reading choices, but it was a must read with Hannah Tinti's name attached. Her characters are real, flawed, and complex. The writing is compelling and visceral. I don't enjoy novels with graphic violence and yet the brutality was necessary, raw, and brilliantly written. I fell in love with Hawley and Loo. Their search for love and freedom is timeless.
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley weaves a tale of love. The love between a girl and a boy, the love between a husband and a wife, the love between a girl and her father, loves that flow both in life and death. Hannah Tinti manages to make largely unlikable characters into people that the readers must like. The last scene is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve read in a long time and the novel as a whole weaves detail into simple things without the pace being dragged down. Wonderful book, highly recommend for anyone who loves literature.
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, Hannah Tinti
Suspenseful, absorbing, and full of compassion,Tinti is a terrific storyteller.
Samuel Hawley loves his daughter deeply and is determined to protect her from his ugly past. He has spent most her life making sure she is safe, which meant never settling in one place for very long, something Loo seemed fine with as long as she was with her dad. But, once Loo turned 12, Hawley realized it was time to settle down and give her the semblance of a normal life. So Hawley finds them a house in the coastal Massachusetts town where her mother came from, and where her grandmother still lives. As Hawley and Loo settle in, Loo’s grandmother makes it clear she wants nothing to do with them.
Hawley is a hard man who always carries a gun and who owns many more. He hides money, beats up people who anger him, and locks himself in the bathroom when he needs to be alone. He seems to trust no one and is always looking over his shoulder. Meanwhile, as Loo learns to be from somewhere, she struggles to navigate being a teenager and fitting in. As she starts to come into her own, a hardness and violent nature begins to bubbles to the surface. It seems she has learned too much from so much time alone and on the run with her dad.
As Loo and Hawley begin to make a life for themselves in their new hometown, we slowly learn about Hawley’s past, and why and how he and Loo ended up as outsiders and wanderers for so long.
Through alternating chapters we discover Hawley’s criminal past and the reasons for his twelve bullet wounds. It seems that Hawley is a man who can’t be killed. He got shot a lot when one thing or another went wrong with one of his “jobs,” but he seems to find a way to come back from the brink of death over and over again.
Hawley was young when he ended up on his own, and as he grew up he turned to crime to survive. He traveled a lot and worked often with a sidekick who resurfaces in the novel later on. Even thought Hawley was a bad guy, there was always a humanity to him that carried him through his violent and ugly encounters. Hawley is likable because of his compassion and kindness, even when he’s killing people. And, when Hawley meets and falls in love with Loo’s mother Lily, you root for their relationship to survive. Yet, ultimately, Hawley only knows one way to be, and after his wife dies and he is left with a child, he must do what he has to do to make sure Loo is forever safe from his past misdeeds.
Tinti is so good as using the mystery of this past, and how it got Hawley and Loo to their present, to draw you into the novel. And, as you are drawn in, so is Loo, who simultaneously is trying to figure out what happened to her parents and how that history got her and Hawley to where they are now.
Suspenseful, absorbing, and full of compassion,Tinti is a terrific storyteller.
Samuel Hawley loves his daughter deeply and is determined to protect her from his ugly past. He has spent most her life making sure she is safe, which meant never settling in one place for very long, something Loo seemed fine with as long as she was with her dad. But, once Loo turned 12, Hawley realized it was time to settle down and give her the semblance of a normal life. So Hawley finds them a house in the coastal Massachusetts town where her mother came from, and where her grandmother still lives. As Hawley and Loo settle in, Loo’s grandmother makes it clear she wants nothing to do with them.
Hawley is a hard man who always carries a gun and who owns many more. He hides money, beats up people who anger him, and locks himself in the bathroom when he needs to be alone. He seems to trust no one and is always looking over his shoulder. Meanwhile, as Loo learns to be from somewhere, she struggles to navigate being a teenager and fitting in. As she starts to come into her own, a hardness and violent nature begins to bubbles to the surface. It seems she has learned too much from so much time alone and on the run with her dad.
As Loo and Hawley begin to make a life for themselves in their new hometown, we slowly learn about Hawley’s past, and why and how he and Loo ended up as outsiders and wanderers for so long.
Through alternating chapters we discover Hawley’s criminal past and the reasons for his twelve bullet wounds. It seems that Hawley is a man who can’t be killed. He got shot a lot when one thing or another went wrong with one of his “jobs,” but he seems to find a way to come back from the brink of death over and over again.
Hawley was young when he ended up on his own, and as he grew up he turned to crime to survive. He traveled a lot and worked often with a sidekick who resurfaces in the novel later on. Even thought Hawley was a bad guy, there was always a humanity to him that carried him through his violent and ugly encounters. Hawley is likable because of his compassion and kindness, even when he’s killing people. And, when Hawley meets and falls in love with Loo’s mother Lily, you root for their relationship to survive. Yet, ultimately, Hawley only knows one way to be, and after his wife dies and he is left with a child, he must do what he has to do to make sure Loo is forever safe from his past misdeeds.
Tinti is so good as using the mystery of this past, and how it got Hawley and Loo to their present, to draw you into the novel. And, as you are drawn in, so is Loo, who simultaneously is trying to figure out what happened to her parents and how that history got her and Hawley to where they are now.
I got more into it as it went on. Kind of a slow start for me.
An interwoven story of Samuel Hawley and his past lives with his daughter Loo's life in the present. A story of family, time, love, and the relationships we have with our families. Also a story of what shapes us, what lessons we don't learn, with a little bit of coming-of-age through Loo. I enjoyed the book a lot. It reminded me of a graphic novel, the way the stories flowed. I loved the action in Samuel's stories, and just felt for Loo and all her struggles in her relationships, including with her family. More anti-heroes than heroes in this story.
Interesting story telling mechanism, but the book felt like it was meant to be much better. There were gaps and spaces that needed filling and the story got predictable after a while.
Samuel Hawley has lived his life on the run, but now that his daughter, Loo, is a teenager he wants to give her a normal life and stay in one place – his late wife’s hometown. Slowly, as they start this new life, Loo begins to uncover the secrets behind a mother she never knew and what led to her death. This was a father-daughter story that had grit and was definitely raw and somewhat gripping. This novel started out confusing and proceeded to confuse the reader until about the first third of the way through. The reader really liked the writing and that’s what propelled them forward in the beginning. Once the reader understood the structure of the novel and the point it became easier to follow. The concept and the idea for this novel was really good, but the execution just didn’t live up to how good the concept sounded. Told in a back and forth from past to present way we learn who the characters are and what their story is. The back and forth, in theory, sounded like the perfect way to tell this story, but in reality it blurred plots, characters and places. The characters were deeply flawed and they were really dimensional. The reader actually really liked how dynamic they were but even though they were really strongly built the plot took a lot of what could have been great development away from them. Too much weaving back and forth really lost the reader and had them caring very little for them. Overall, this novel had potential, but it fell flat for the reader.