Review: The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The best sorts of novels are hard to categorize. (My theory is that’s why they get called “literary.”) An action novel would have a guy on the lam, running from an ugly past. A coming of age novel would show a misfit teenager trying to interact with her peers and manage her feelings for a boy. A family dynamics novel would portray a husband, daughter, and grandmother all grappling with the death of their wife/mother/daughter.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley has all of these elements, and more. It includes a fraught friendship between two men. A challenging yet beautiful marriage between a woman trying to escape her home and man trying to find one. The difficulties of parenting alone. How to live as a perpetual outsider, and the delicate balance between the need for privacy and the natural urge to form human connection.

Nothing I can write in a few paragraphs will do this novel justice. If rock solid character development and unwavering attention to the details that make us human are what you look for in a novel, then Twelve Lives may soon be your favorite.

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