^ I understand those feelings. Surprises me that a female author focused so much on guns.
The story and characters did not grab me, as mentioned upthread. I’ve been wondering if the author had let us into the character’s heads more – what were they thinking?! – maybe I would have liked it more?
IDK. It’s weird to read (listen) to a book and just not care for the characters or what happens to them.
Last time I felt that way was Sweetbitter! Uh-oh! 
^ Haha, I think “Sweetbitter” is going to have to become an official code word for ranking.
It’s so interesting how we read the same material, but come away with such different impressions. I saw the The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley as subtly and brilliantly anti-gun – very much in the same vein as “Hell or High Water.” This is from a review of that movie:
But as with Samuel Hawley, others found the film to be a glorification of guns (and I can also understand coming away with that impression).
@SouthJerseyChessMom, Hannah Tinti said that she knew nothing about guns before starting the novel. Had to do all the research from scratch.
I didn’t feel like the book glorified guns. Hawley certainly would have been better off if he’d never had access to them. But I also get how he loved those guns. My Dad hunted a bit in Africa when he got tired of eating chicken and goat, but we weren’t a gun family. But I once almost bought the most beautiful dueling pistols in Paris at a flea market. I was about 19 at the time and the main thing that stopped me was I had no idea how I’d get them back to the US.
@Mary13 from your link Hannah learns to shoot a gun interview.
Also, from other interviews, Tinti’s mindset while writing this story was dark, family illnesses, bad break up, financial issues, car accident, she knows “desperation”…
She felt bullied growing up, which may explain some of the Loo’s vengeful and violent actions.
@mathmom you wrote that you didn’t think Tinti glorified guns.
The way she repeatedly listed all the treasured guns Hawley kept, the opening chapter about the coming of age moment, when Loo learned to shoot.
Not only once, but offen Tinti listed the kinds of guns,like a Luger, Berreta, Colt, magnum 357, and weatherly with scope everyone so admired,
Had the author just written, Hawley gathered up his gun collection, off they went” but she focused on the kinds of weapons, if Hawley didn’t go everywhere packing a gun, he felt unsafe, but he had guns stashed under blankets in the car, in closets, everywhere.
Out of time! Yes, love that. Water was such a on ongoing theme, so I just drifted along with this “out of time” story. At times Hawley seemed like a gun slinger from the Wild West, in Alaska a survivor of something primordial/ancient, in Olympus, Massachusetts, life was mythical, needing to battle on the greasy pole
Loo’s sense of the cosmos, also, projected the story to the heavens, trying to make sense of life, of loss.
Time, was another theme. Clocks, clepsyhydras, precious watches. I was surprised Hawley wasn’t drug dealer, instead, museum quality time pieces. Losing the clepsydra resulted in Loo’s murder. Throwing the deer engraved watch into the ocean, was Loo’s final heroic act.
First, it’s Weatherby (with a b and not an l). Which brings me to my point, there are guns and then there are guns. And to people who know the difference, it matters. A Weatherby rifle is not the same as a .357 Magnum handgun. They have different uses.
To me, as someone who lives in a state where the majority of middle and upper income males hunt, the very fact that Tinti does go into detail tells me that Hawley is someone who deeply cares about the responsibilities of gun ownership. When I think of people who “glorify” guns, it’s usually people who, in reality, have no real use for them but enjoy the power they believe a gun provides.
@SouthJerseyChessMom: I’m with @mathmom in thinking Tinti doesn’t glorify guns. The guns simply wouldn’t have registered the way they did (ha - gun registration - bad pun) had Tinti simply written that Hawley gathered them and off he went. I know nothing about guns so probably would have pictured something along the lines of one or two handguns and maybe a rifle. The way it’s written paints a picture that matches Hawley’s criminal past. The fact that he can’t escape that past at will is haunting; carrying his gun at all times fulfills a different need now than in his criminal past.
Tinti plays with time in each Bullet much as does with each Labor. I don’t have my book next to me but will try to remember a few. Please correct errors.
Bullet #1: Clocks ticking throughout the house that Jove and Hawley rob.
Bullet #2: Motel clock stuck @ 6:00
Bullet #3. Hawley and Jove retrieve the invaluable watch from Talbot.
Bullet #4: Clock in the “wild boar” diner
Bullet #5: The clock on the dashboard of the car; Hawley and Lily wait for her mother Mabel Ridge. (Did you notice that Tinti always writes “Mabel Ridge” - never just Mabel - no matter how many time the name is written on a page? Anyone care to reason that out for me?)
I’d have to look at the other Bullets and corresponding time references, but speaking of time, I’m out of it at the moment. Except: @Mary13, I loved the movie Hell or High Water and thought of it in much the same way.
It’s a tightrope. Hawley loved his guns, that to me is what she is describing. Hawley’s relationship with his guns is creepy. But we see them do enormous damage. Over and over again. She has to put you in Hawley’s shoes.
@tutumom2001 that was a typo with weatherby (ly) which I know too well. I just held a weatherby rifle with a leupold scope for the first time in my life yesterday. I told my husband about the guns mentioned and he brought out the weatherby he bought for elk hunting in Montana 40 years ago.
So that weatherly was a true typo -
As a survivor Harley needed the weapons. I can just project how a movie audience might see it as glorification in our very violent society today. The guns were the answer to Hawley’s problems, jobs and survival.
Also, I respected that Harley saw the slaughter of the Prairie Dogs as cruel.
The contraband was antiquities, and Hawley was drawn to them. Re the eleven million dollar deer watch:
Losing the clepsydra actually resulted in Hawley’s (presumed) death (Bullet Number Twelve), not Lily’s, at least not directly. It was the loss of the clepsydra that ultimately sent King after Hawley.
The convoluted journey of the deer watch is what resulted in Lily’s murder: Hawley and Jove’s attempt to retrieve the watch from Talbot ended in the death of Talbot’s wife, Maureen, which propelled him on his mission to find and kill Hawley — but he ended up killing Lily instead. Sound complicated? It is, a bit. But I think one of the points Tinti is making is that the lives of all these characters are intricately intertwined — it’s a domino effect of consequences.
On that note, this morning, I was thinking about the interconnections in the the story and also about this exchange (probably because, as an insecure parent, I sometimes share Hawley’s opinion):
And then a short while later, I picked up a magazine that we had lying around the house and read this excerpt from a book by Miguel Chen:
The essay was way more “new age” than my usual reading material, but I got a kick out of the passage because it seemed like punk rocker Buddhist yoga instructor Miguel Chen was speaking right to Samuel Hawley. 
Wasn’t the watch at the end, the one thrown into the ocean, the watch Maureen, Talbot’s wife’s had hidden in her wedding gown ?
^ Yes, that’s the one. Because Maureen dies as a result of Hawley and Jove’s botched attempt to retrieve the watch, Talbot eventually comes after Hawley (and shoots Lily at the beach). So when Loo throws the watch into the water, she is destroying the material object of greed that led to the death of her mother. Hawley is happy that she does so (but King isn’t!)
@Mary13: A strong yes to everything you wrote in post #72
@Mary13 post Reminds me of a book we read long, long ago “let the great world spin” by Colum McCann about the randomness of things, the interconnectedness of all.
The final scene with Loo steering the boat, finding her way,
the deep mysterious vast ocean below, the star filled night sky above, the constellations as her guide as though the cosmos was sending her secret messages, and the whale, resonated with me.
^ Yes, Let the Great World Spin was a lovely book–focused not only on interconnected lives, but also (like Hawley), on redemption.
My opinion is that always combining the two names makes her more stern, less approachable. To refer to her as just “Mabel” is too…familiar. I don’t think that even SHE wants to be on a first name basis with us. As for “Ridge,” it suggests that she is immovable but in an awesome way. Think Blue Ridge Mountains or, if we’re going with the water theme, the Mid Atlantic Ridge.
^ great explanation of why Mabel Was never referred to by her first name only.
Just want to say special thanks to @ignatius , @mathmom. @Mary13 for explaining how Feats of Hercules relates to such bullet chapter. Fascinating.
I add my thanks to @ignatius, @mathmom, and @Mary13 for the Feats of Hercules info! It really helped me appreciate the book more.
I just realized that the Debussy in the eleven million dollar deer watch would have been “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_7loz-HWUM