Let me just get it out of the way and say that Chapter 15 will break your heart. I listened to the final minutes of that chapter while parked in traffic on the 295 and found myself muttering under my breath: “no no no no no no no no.” I pushed stop on the Audible app when the chapter was over and didn’t pick the book back up until the next day. That’s the kind of book Twelve Lives is. It pulls you into the lives, minds and hearts of the characters in unexpected ways and with an unanticipated depth.
I came across Twelve Lives in a New York Times book review back in April. Since then it had rested dormant on my Amazon wish list.
That is, until I recently changed part of my reading strategy to listening to only fiction audiobooks during my afternoon commute which put me in the market for a great tale. I had been listening to books from my productivity reading list during my afternoon commutes for much of the past year but found it pretty much impossible to take any form of notes. This became especially problematic when it came time to write a review (like this one). Thus my switch to fiction versus non-fiction audiobooks.
I think my own biggest challenge with digesting and capturing the salient points from the books I read is timeliness. At any point in time, I am typically working my way through about 3 books: 1 on my kindle, 1 work book*, and 1 audiobook. I like to mix these up between productivity/betterment, fiction and african literature. Thus it’s difficult to set aside roughly one hour to put together one of these reviews. But as Stavridis points out The Leader’s Bookshelf, it’s not enough for a leader to just read, rather “a strong leader reads but also processes what he or she is reading to create real thoughts”i--i.e., writing down those thoughts and sharing them.
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is a modern day adaptation of Peisander’s play “The 12 Labors of Hercules.” In that ancient Greek tale, after murdering his wife and children in a goddess-induced fit of insanity, Hercules sets out to atone for his sins by completing 12 fantastic, near-impossible quests over a 12 year period. It’s in this redemptive quest, that he becomes a hero of legendary and mythic proportions.
The genius of author Hannah Tinti’s story is that she layers several tragic love stories onto this epic framework. These cover the gambit: from man and woman, to father and daughter, to platonic between two friends,and to daughter and mother. The tragic nature of the stories comes from the common thread of absence that is woven into each of them.
Mechanically, Twelve Lives overlays the history of the 12 bullets that struck Samuel Hawley during his life with the his daughter Lou’s own coming of age, as she slowly uncovers her father’s sordid criminal past. It’s in the convergence of these two stories that the climax approaches.
Ultimately, Twelve Lives benefits from the strength of using an age old tale for its framework--because of this--and because of Tinti’s strong and striking prose (not to mention a keen ear for dialogue) this is a story that you won’t soon forget.
P.S. I’d be remiss not to praise the Audiobook narrator Elizabeth Wiley’s phenomenal job. She dove into the work and smoothly worked through the voices of multiple characters seamlessly.
*I average almost one book a month at work by reading in short snippets on the john, while waiting at meetings and every time my computer requires an NMCI reboot. I imagine I am the only person at the Navy Yard scribbling notes sitting on the toilet.
Key Takeaways:
The cumulative effect of small decisions over the course of a lifetime. This idea of this is echoed in just about every productivity book out there. Doing one small thing for a few minutes a day over the course of a year (or lifetime) can reap huge benefits. In the case of Hawley we see the deleterious effect of a lifetime of bad decisions.
The quest for redemption is one that can cover a plethora of sins--the power of Hawley’s quest (and Tinti’s superb writing) makes a violent criminal/sometimes murderer into a halfway likable character.
This would be a great book to reread more closely with the original Hercules story--then you could draw upon parallels and differences.
Father’s have a tremendous and distinct influence upon their daughters--make the most of it.
Tinti writes so well--it should inspire any wannabe writer.
Key Quotes:
“Everything breaks if you hit it hard enough.”
“Love isn't about keeping promises. It's about knowing someone better than anyone else. I'm the only one who knows him. I'm the only one who ever will.”
“He tore at her clothing like he was searching for something she had stolen from him.”
“For the first time he had something to lose, and it was funny how that changed things, how it made Hawley imagine himself living past the next day, into the next week, the next year. He’d started wearing his seatbelt. He brushed his teeth. Sometimes he fell so deeply inside his new life that the edges of himself felt like they were coming loose. Then Lily would catch him in one of his old habits—checking and rechecking the locks, or doubling back on streets when he thought they were being followed—and the years he’d spent alone would rise up solidly around him, resonating in the dark like blood pushed out of a pinprick.”
"Hawley's scars were signs of previous damage that had impacted his life long before she was born. And like the moon, Hawley was always circling between Loo and the rest of the universe."
There was a taste that filled Loo's mouth whenever she was getting ready to hit someone, tangy like rust. She could feel the glands on either side of her jaw as if she'd bitten her tongue. The first few times the taste came slowly, but soon it flooded her mouth whenever a situation was turning against her. Then the pool took over her senses and for a moment she crossed over and became another person, a powerful person even if it lasted only until someone punched her back.
Key References:
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Hannah Tinti is the editor and co-founder of “One Story” literary magazine.
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