NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A gripping American-on-the-run thriller . . . a brilliant coming-of-age tale and a touching exploration of father-daughter relationships.”—Newsweek “One part Quentin Tarantino, one part Scheherazade, and twelve parts wild innovation.”—Ann Patchett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of CommonwealthNAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST … OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • The Washington Post • Paste
Samuel Hawley isn’t like the other fathers in Olympus, Massachusetts. A loner who spent years living on the run, he raised his beloved daughter, Loo, on the road, moving from motel to motel, always watching his back. Now that Loo’s a teenager, Hawley wants only to give her a normal life. In his late wife’s hometown, he finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at the local high school.
Growing more and more curious about the mother she never knew, Loo begins to investigate. Soon, everywhere she turns, she encounters the mysteries of her parents’ lives before she was born. This hidden past is made all the more real by the twelve scars her father carries on his body. Each scar is from a bullet Hawley took over the course of his criminal career. Each is a memory: of another place on the map, another thrilling close call, another moment of love lost and found. As Loo uncovers a history that’s darker than she could have known, the demons of her father’s past spill over into the present—and together both Hawley and Loo must face a reckoning yet to come.
Praise for The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
“A master class in literary suspense.”—The Washington Post
“Tinti depicts brutality and compassion with exquisite sensitivity, creating a powerful overlay of love and pain.”—The New Yorker
“Hannah Tinti’s beautifully constructed second novel . . . uses the scars on Hawley’s body—all twelve bullet wounds, one by one—to show who he is, what he’s done, and why the past chases and clings to him with such tenacity.”—The Boston Globe
“The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is an adventure epic with the deeper resonance of myth. . . . Tinti exhibits an aptitude for shining a piercing light into the corners of her characters’ hearts and minds.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
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I really loved the story of the tough old gangster father, adrift on his own after the death of the love of his life, raising his daughter. It shows how resilient we are as human beings, especially children. While it was tragic, at times it was laugh out loud funny. It was an interesting journey. A good read all the way to the end.
Not sure why this story was written?
a remarkable book about the relationship between a young girl and her widowed, fugitive father…a man covered with bullet wounds that chart his violence-plagued life.
I had read The Good Thief by Tinti awhile back. I was neither delighted nor disappointed with it. It read like a dark fairy tale with some flaws. When I happened to stumble on The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley at the bookstore, I was intrigued by the book blurb and thought I would give it a go.
The book started off at a great pace. Sam Hawley is a thief. He makes his money illegally and all of his jobs contain some element of danger and risk. Hawley is a wonderer and basically a loner, until a chance encounter unites him with Lily. Lily has had problems of her own but she and Hawley somehow seem to make it work. When Lily becomes pregnant with Louise (Loo), things become complicated. Hawley initially doesn’t connect with his newborn daughter and Lily is left to care for their baby pretty much on her own. After Lily dies, Hawley is forced to make some difficult life decisions and figure out how to move forward in life.
The novel has a unique style. The story alternates between the present and the past until the chapters merge the two time periods together. The past details how Hawley’s life shaped the present he is now living. The present is a narration of Hawley and Loo’s current situation. Intermixed between the two are the stories of how Hawley was shot 12 times.
In some ways this is a coming of age story. The reader gets to go on Loo’s journey from birth to adulthood. Her passage is filled with trials and tribulations and the exploration of many unanswered questions about her mother and Hawley’s past. It’s a tough road but Loo is a likable character and it’s nearly impossible not to root for her even during her worst behavior. She’s flawed but understandably so.
Similar to The Good Thief, this book sparks questions such as:
Can a criminal can be a good person?
What constitutes doing the right thing?
Is murder ever justified?
Is there value in vigilante justice?
Is teaching survival at any cost appropriate parenting?
To what extent is the human heart capable of forgiveness?
I thought this was a good book. The plot started to slow in tempo towards the end and the story started to drag a little but it’s definitely worth the read!
You can’t help who you love whether that’s a romantic love or family. The daughter/father relationship in this book hooked me.