The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

Tinti, Hannah. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley. New York: Random House. 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

When Loo was twelve years old her father taught her how to shoot a gun. 

He had a full case of them in his room, others hidden in boxes around the house.

Description:

Hannah Tinti's thriller, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, is an unusually quiet yet gripping thriller of a tale. Loo Hawley is a twelve-year-old girl growing up while traveling on the road with her secretive father, Steven, driving from anonymous place to anonymous place, living in hotel after hotel. Loo is naturally curious about her father's past, particularly about his relationship with her dead mother, Lily, whom he rarely mentions. 

When Loo and Hawley finally settle in her mother's hometown, Loo slowly begins to gather clues about her parents' life together. She is surprised to learn that their history is not all peaches and cream ... starting with stories about the twelve scars on Hawley's body, all from bullet wounds. 

Flipping seamlessly between their current life in Olympus, Massachusetts, and various criminal episodes from Samuel's past, author Tinti cleverly unfolds the stories behind the people that father and daughter encounter on their travels as well as the adventures that led to each of Samuel's wounds. And there are some doozies.

Meanwhile Loo is coming of age herself, struggling to form friendships with schoolmates, developing her first relationship with another young man, and seeking to understand who she is and what her mother meant to her and Hawley. 

Hawley proves himself a man of extremes: a loving father trying to protect his daughter, but one who owns and uses many guns in criminal activities. At each hotel, he tenderly erects on the bathroom shelf a collection of his deceased wife's belongings (shampoo, grocery list, photos, lipstick, toothbrush, cans of pineapple), yet never discusses her with Loo. He's a man longing to put down roots, yet takes to the road on any hint of inquiry into his life. 

I won't spoil the surprises about the characters or actions Loo and Hawley encounter, but suffice to say Twelve Lives is an engrossing, original tale of genuinely fascinating, honest, and unexpectedly sympathetic people who will pull you into a world of secrets, crime, love, protection, and adventure and won't let go. 

I was hooked by Tinti's writing and creative imagination for plot and sympathetic characters who try so hard to understand and make their world livable and safe for their friends and family despite the sadness and challenges faced during their travels. A keeper of a book for sure.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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