The twelve lives of Samuel Hawley A novel

Review by New York Times Review

LOCKING UP OUR OWN: Crime and Punishment in Black America, by James Forman Jr. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) A masterly account of how a generation of black elected officials wrestled with crises of violence and drug use by unleashing the brutal power of the criminal justice system on their constituents. A COLONY IN A NATION, by Chris Hayes. (Norton, $26.95.) Drawing on his experience growing up as a white kid in the crack-era Bronx, Hayes offers a forceful analysis of two "distinct regimes" in America - one for whites, which he calls the Nation; the other for blacks, which he calls the Colony. "In the Nation you have rights; in the Colony, you have commands," he explains. WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE SOLOMONS, by Bethany Ball. (Atlantic Monthly, $25.) Ball's first novel is a wry, dark multigenerational tale, full of emotional insight, about the Israeli and American branches of an extended family. WHO LOST RUSSIA? How the World Entered a New Cold War, by Peter Conradi. (Oneworld, $27.99.) A smart, balanced analysis of the internal developments that have shaped Russia's course. Putin's current assertiveness, Conradi shows, has roots in the tumultuous '90s. LETTERMAN: The Last Giant of Late Night, by Jason Zinoman. (Harper/HarperCollins, $28.99.) Zinoman's lively book does impressive triple duty as an acute portrait of stardom, an insightful chronicle of three rambunctious decades of pop-culture evolution, and a very brainy fan's notes. MARTIN LUTHER: Renegade and Prophet, by Lyndal Roper. (Random House, $40.) Impeccable scholarship and painstaking fair-mindedness characterize his deeply illuminating biography. Roper has mined the correspondence, and Luther's charisma and complexity shine through the letters. THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY, by Hannah Tinti. (Dial, $27.) In this strikingly symphonic comingof-age novel, the present life of a teenage girl raised by her career-criminal father alternates with stories of his past, represented by his 12 bullet wounds. THE TEMPORARY BRIDE: A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran, by Jennifer Klinec. (Twelve, paper, $15.99.) A Canadian woman's vivid foodie travelogue about home cooking in Iran turns into a surprising love story. THE MURDERER'S APE, written and illustrated by Jakob Wegelius. Translated by Peter Graves. (Delacorte, $17.99; ages 12 and up.) A gorilla who understands everything humans say but cannot speak is the narrator of this charming young adult book, full of heart and illustrated with delightful drawings. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 16, 2017]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Tinti follows her acclaimed first novel, The Good Thief (2008), with another atmospheric, complexly suspenseful saga centered on an imperiled child under the care and tutelage of an outlaw. Sam Hawley's sole reason for living after the drowning death of his wife, Lily, is his daughter. As for Loo, she is mostly content living on the run with her father, driving cross-country in a truck full of guns and staying in shabby motels in which Sam carefully sets up a bathroom shrine to Lily comprising photographs and her makeup, shampoo, and robe. But as Loo nears 12, Sam decides she needs a more stable life and risks settling down in the coastal Massachusetts town where Lily grew up and where Lily's angry mother, Mabel, still lives, certain that Sam is responsible for her daughter's demise. As Loo and Sam take measure of the troubles at hand, Tinti turns back the wheel of time and tells the hair-raising stories of each of the 12 bullet wounds scarring Sam's battle-ready body. In between these wild flashbacks, Loo comes of age and embarks on her own dangerous escapades. With life-or-death struggles in dramatic settings, including a calving glacier, and starring a fiercely loving, reluctant criminal and a girl of grit and wonder, Tinti has forged a breathtaking novel of violence and tenderness.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Seamlessly transposing classical myth into a quintessentially American landscape and marrying taut suspense with dreamy lyricism, Tinti's beautifully intricate second novel is well worth the wait since 2008's The Good Thief. As his beloved daughter, Loo, hits adolescence, longtime criminal Samuel Hawley forswears life on the run and moves with her to the coastal Massachusetts town where her late mother Lily was raised. Though father and daughter both struggle to adjust, Samuel finds a place in the town's fishing industry as Loo experiences first love with the quirky son of environmentalists who oppose it. But the consequences of Samuel's violent past continue unfolding, while Loo's quest to understand the truth of her mother's death by drowning may fracture her bond with her father forever. Alternating chapters chronicle Samuel's past-traced through the 12 bullet wounds that scar his body-and Loo's attempts to find an authentic self and a future. As the story lines converge, Tinti's imagery evokes time, space, the sea, and the myth of Heracles without losing the narrative's sure grounding in American communities and culture. This is a convincingly redemptive and celebratory novel: an affirmation of the way that heroism and human fallibility coexist, of how good parenting comes in unexpected packages, and of the way that we are marked by our encounters with each other and the luminous universe in which we dwell. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Samuel Hawley is a career criminal, working since his teens as a low-level deliveryman and enforcer for an organized crime operation devoted to the trade of rare and expensive timepieces. Although he sometimes has remorse for what he is called on to do, especially when innocents get caught in the crossfire, he has little thought for the future until he meets and marries Lily, who then gives birth to their daughter, Louise (Loo). In alternating chapters, we follow Loo's adolescence and dawning realization of who her father is, alongside Hawley's history of violence and unsuccessful attempts to escape his past. Complex political and social issues such as environmentalism (protection of wildlife vs. sustaining a fishing industry central to a town's economy) and gun violence (Hawley is arguably someone who really does need guns for his own protection) are treated in a way that demonstrates compassion for all sides. VERDICT Tinti (The Good Thief) here successfully straddles genres. There is enough action and suspense to satisfy thriller fans, but the core of the story is the character development and exploration of relationships common to literary fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 9/19/16.]-Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

With her first novel since her Alex Award-winning The Good Thief, Tinti has produced another excellent, teen-friendly narrative, a blend of thriller and coming-of-age that's full of fascinating characters. Samuel has led a dangerous life, which began with petty crime as an adolescent and became more difficult as he grew older. He bears the scars of 12 bullets, and the story behind each injury is revealed in exciting flashbacks. Samuel and his daughter, Loo, move often to avoid enemies who are looking for him. When Loo is ready for high school, Samuel feels safe enough to settle in Loo's mother's Massachusetts hometown, where he becomes a fisherman. At school, Loo is bullied until she attacks her tormentors, and a romance with a bright classmate eases her loneliness and lightens the tense plot. She is a clever, courageous teen who surprises her father when his past catches up with him. The pace of the novel is incredibly fast, and the characters are well developed. VERDICT Tinti's deft combination of gripping action and deep characterization will attract high school readers, especially those with a literary bent.-Karlan Sick, formerly at New York Public Library © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The daughter of a career criminal explores her family's past along with the family business.Loo, the hero of Tinti's second novel (The Good Thief, 2008), has spent much of her childhood living out of a suitcase with her father, Samuel, who helps steal and fence jewelry and antiques. Her mom, Lily, died under vague circumstances shortly after Loo was born, but her presence has been constant: Dad places mementos of her every place they've lived. So when their travels bring them to the Massachusetts fishing town where Lily grew up, it's time for a reckoning. Loo spends her adolescence there drawing from dad's tough-guy playbook, breaking the finger of a boy who crosses her and learning how to shoot guns and hot-wire cars. Those present-day chapters are interwoven with scenes from Samuel's criminal pastthe "lives" of the title refer to the number of times he's been shot, and Tinti wittily explores each bullet for alternately comic, tragic, and thriller-ish effects. We wear our emotional pains and struggles in our bodies, Tinti means to argue, and scene to scene the novel is graceful and observant. But a dozen bullet wounds also represents a lot of metaphorical heavy lifting in addition to the other overt symbols that lard the narrative (watches, gloves, disorienting carnival rides, a whale, etc.), and at times such detail overshadows Loo's budding relationship and push and pull with Lily's mother; a subplot involving a petition to stop overfishing gets short shrift. The novel is at its strongest when it focuses on Sam and Lily or Loo, whether they're getting out of scrapes or plotting their next move. But for a story about a man who has to travel light, it carries plenty of baggage. An accomplished if overstuffed merger of coming-of-age tale and literary thriller. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Hawley When Loo was twelve years old her father taught her how to shoot a gun. He had a case full of them in his room, others hidden in boxes around the house. Loo had seen them at night, when he took the guns apart and cleaned them at the kitchen table, oiling and polishing and brushing for hours. She was forbidden to touch them and so she watched from a distance, learning what she could about their secrets, until the day when she blew out birthday candles on twelve chocolate Ring Dings, arranged on a plate in the shape of a star, and Hawley opened the wooden chest in their living room and put the gift she had been waiting for--­her grandfather's rifle--­into her arms. Now Loo waited in the hallway as her father pulled down a box of ammunition from the front closet. He took out some .22 rimfires--­long-­rifle and Magnum--­as well as nine-­millimeter Hornady 115-­grain. The bullets rattled inside their cardboard containers as he slid them into a bag. Loo took note of every detail, as if her father's choices were part of a test she would later have to pass. Hawley grabbed a bolt-­action Model 5 Remington, a Winchester Model 52 and his Colt Python. Whenever he left the house, Loo's father carried a gun with him. Each of these guns had a story. There was the rifle that Loo's grandfather had carried in the war, notched with kills, that now belonged to her. There was the twenty-­gauge shotgun from a ranch in Wyoming where Hawley worked for a time running horses. There was a set of silver dueling pistols in a polished wooden case, won in a poker game in Arizona. The snub-­nosed Ruger he kept in a bag at the back of his closet. The collection of derringers with pearl handles that he hid in the bottom drawer of his bureau. And the Colt with a stamp from Hartford, Connecticut, on the side. The Colt had no particular resting place. Loo had found it underneath her father's mattress and sitting openly on the kitchen table, on top of the refrigerator and once on the edge of the bathtub. The gun was her father's shadow. Resting in the places he had passed through. If Hawley was out of the room, sometimes she would touch the handle. The grip was made of rosewood, and felt smooth beneath her fingers, but she never picked it up or moved it from whatever place he had set it down. Hawley grabbed the Colt now and tucked it under his belt, then strung the rifles across his shoulder. He said, "Come on, troublemaker." Then he held open the door for them both. He led his daughter into the woods behind their house and down into the ravine, where a stream rushed over mossy rocks before emptying out into the ocean. It was a clear day. The leaves had abandoned their branches for the forest floor, a carpet of crimson, yellow and orange; crisp and rustling. Loo's father marked a pine tree at two hundred yards with a small spot of white paint, then set the bucket down and walked back to his daughter and the guns. Hawley was in his forties but looked younger, his hips still narrow, his legs strong. He was as tall as a longboat, with wide shoulders that sloped from the years of driving his truck back and forth across the country with Loo in the passenger seat. His hands were callused from the day jobs he'd work from time to time--­fixing cars or painting houses. His fingernails were lined with grease and his dark hair was always overgrown and tangled. But his eyes were a deep blue and he had a face that was rough and broken in a way that came out handsome. Wherever they had stopped on the road, whether it was for breakfast at some diner on the highway, or in a small town where they'd set up for a while, Loo would notice women drifting toward him. But her father would make his mouth go still and set his jaw and it kept anyone from getting too close. These days his truck wasn't going anywhere except down to the water, where they dug clams and hauled buckets of shells. Quahogs, Hawley called them. But also littlenecks, topnecks, steamers and cherrystones, depending on their size and color. He used a rake to hunt but Loo preferred a long, thin spade that could pierce the surface before the creatures began to burrow. Early each morning father and daughter rolled their pants above their knees and slipped on rubber boots. The shells were pulled from the salt marshes and mudflats, from the sandy bay and at low tide along the shore. Hawley took the Remington off his shoulder and showed Loo how to load the clip. Five bullets slid inside, one by one. Then the magazine clicked into place. "This is for starters. A practice gun. It won't do much damage. But still," he said. "Keep the safety on. Check your target and what's behind your target. Don't point it at anything you don't want to shoot." He opened the bolt, retracted, then closed it again, pulling the first live round into the chamber. Then he handed his daughter the rifle. "Plant your feet," he said. "Loosen your knees. Take a breath. Let half of it out. That's when you want to squeeze the trigger. On the exhale. Don't pull--­just squeeze." The Remington was cool and heavy in Loo's hands, and her arms shook a little as she raised the stock to her shoulder. She had dreamed of holding one of her father's guns for so many years that it was as if she were dreaming now. She tried to level the sight as she took aim, pulled the handle in close, lifted her elbow and last, last of all, flipped off the safety. "What are you going to shoot?" her father asked. "That tree," said Loo. "Right." In her mind she imagined the trajectory of the bullet, saw it going for miles, creating its own history. She knew every part of this gun, every gear and bolt, and she could sense each piece now--­the spring and the carrier and the chamber and the pin--­working together and sliding into place as she touched the trigger. The explosion that followed was more of a pop than a blast. The butt of the rifle barely moved against her shoulder. She expected a thrill, some kind of corresponding shudder in her body, but all she felt was a tiny bubble of relief. "Look," her father said. Loo lowered the barrel. She could just make out the white mark in the distance, untouched. "I missed." "Everyone misses." Hawley scratched his nose. "Your mother missed." "She did?" "The first time," he said. "Now slide the bolt." "Did she use this gun?" "No," said Hawley. "She liked the Ruger." Loo pulled back on the lever and the casing flung through the air and onto the forest floor. She locked the bolt back into place, and the next bullet slid into the chamber. Her mother, Lily, had died before the girl could remember. A drowning accident in a lake. Hawley had shown Loo the exact spot where it had happened, on a map of Wisconsin. A small blue circle she could hide with the tip of her finger. Hawley did not like to speak about it. Because of this the air shimmered a bit whenever he did, as if Lily's name were conjuring something dangerous. Most of what Loo knew about her mother was contained in a box full of mementos, a traveling shrine that her father re-­created in the bathroom of each place they lived. Motel rooms and temporary apartments, walk-­ups and cabins in the woods, and now this house on the hill, this place that Hawley said would be their home. The photographs went up first, around the bathtub and sink. Her father affixed each carefully so they wouldn't rip--­shots of Loo's mother and her long black hair, pale skin and green eyes. Next he arranged half-­used bottles of shampoo and conditioner, a compact and a tube of red lipstick, a bent toothbrush, a silk bathrobe with dragons sewn on the back and cans of Lily's favorite foods--­pineapple and garbanzo beans--­along with bits of handwriting, scraps of paper discovered after her death, things she had needed from the grocery store, lists of activities she had hoped to finish by the following Saturday and a parking ticket with fragments of a dream scribbled on the back. Old car with hinges folds down into a suitcase. Every time Loo used the toilet or took a bath, she faced her mother's words, watching the letters bleed together over the years and the ink fade from the steam of the shower. The dead woman was an ever-­present part of their lives. When Loo did something well, her father said: Just like your mother, and when she did something bad, her father said: Your mother would never approve. Loo squeezed the trigger. She did it again and again, reloading for over an hour, occasionally nicking bark from the tree but missing the target every time, until there was a pile of brass shells at her feet and her arm ached from the weight of the gun. "The mark's too small," said Loo. "I'll never hit it." Hawley pulled a wallet of tobacco from his pocket and shook it back and forth at her. Loo put down the gun. She walked over and took the pouch from him, as well as a package of rolling papers. She slid one thin piece of paper away from the rest, folded it in half with her finger and then tucked some of the tobacco along the crease. Then she placed the filter and began rolling, pinching the ends, licking the edge to seal the fold. She handed the cigarette to her father, and he lit it and settled onto a rock nearby, leaning into the sun. He had started a beard, as he did whenever the weather turned cold, and he scratched it now, his fingers catching in the wiry brown hair. "You're thinking too much." Loo tossed the pouch at him, then picked up the rifle again. Her father had hardly spoken during the lesson, as if he expected her to already know how to shoot. She'd been excited when they started, but now she was losing her nerve--­in the same way she did in the bathroom surrounded by scraps of her mother's words and cans of her mother's favorite foods and pictures of her mother's effortless beauty. "I can't do this," she said. The tide was coming in. Loo could hear the ocean beyond the ravine, gathering strength. One wave after another advancing upon the shore. Hawley tucked the roll of tobacco back into his pocket. "There's nothing between you and that tree." "I'm between it." "Then get out of the way." Loo flipped the safety on and put the rifle down again. She dug a rock out of the dirt with her fingers and threw it into the woods as far as she could. The rock sailed halfway toward the white mark and then crashed into some bushes. Birds scattered. The sound of a plane passed overhead. Loo looked through the branches at the flash of aluminum in the sky. Thirty thousand feet away and it seemed like an easier target. Hawley's cigarette had gone out as he watched her and now he relit the end, striking a match, the ember glowing once, twice, as he brought it to his lips. Then he crushed the cigarette against the rock. He blew smoke out of his mouth. "You need a mask." Hawley lifted his giant hands and covered his own face. Then he opened his fingers, framing his eyes and forming a bridge across his nose. It made him look like a stranger. Then Hawley dropped the mask and he was her father again. "Try it," he said. Loo's hands were not as big but they did the job, closing her off from the woods and her own disappointment. It was like blinders on a horse. Things got blurry or disappeared when she turned her eyes left or right. "How am I supposed to shoot like this?" "Use it to focus, then pick up the gun," said Hawley. Loo turned back toward the target. The sun was beginning to set. The white spot of paint caught the light and was glowing. What surrounded the tree--­the earth, the sky, its own branches--­fell away. This was how her father must see things, she thought. A whole world of bull's-­eyes. Just then, beyond the mark, there was a shuffling of leaves. Some kind of movement in the woods. Loo dropped her hands from her face. She held her breath. She heard only the sound of the wind. The rattle of birch leaves flipping back and forth. The distant echo of the plane in the clouds. The scratch of a squirrel's claws as it scrambled up the bark of a tree. But her father was listening for something else. His chin was down, his eyes cutting left. His face tensed and ready. Hawley was always watching. Always waiting. He got the same look when they went into town for supplies, when the mailman came to their door, when a car pulled alongside them on the road. She heard him late at night, walking the living room floor, checking the locks on the windows. Digging on the beach for clams, he kept his back to the sea. These were small things, but she noticed. And she noticed now, as his whole body became still. He reached behind to his belt, and his hand came back with the Colt. Excerpted from The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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