Oh, I thought the winner had to seize the flag and descend gracefully from the pole. Guess that would be kind of hard! Look, Hanna Tinti is the first congratulatory tweet: https://www.masslive.com/expo/news/erry-2018/07/00d6b083431690/major_wipeouts_at_the_91st_ann.html
Awesome to see the video clip of the actual event ! The last contestant actually gets the flag, but many fall first. Great find. Fun.
Weird as it now seems, the 1st-8th grade school I attended - obviously long ago - had a greasy pole contest on field day. Only 8th graders got to participate. A telephone pole erected upright was slathered with Crisco and had bags of candy all around the top. Mainly the boys went for it - standing on each other’s shoulders; pushing each other higher. I wonder now how many injuries resulted. I can’t imagine it being okay today.
Lol! I think the school district would have some serious litigation on its hands today. But what fun!
What did you all think of Jove? In the beginning of the book, I thought he was bad news, but then I confess that I, like Loo, found him just a wee bit charming when he visited the Hawleys and made himself at home chopping up the vegetables for dinner.
The Naval Academy has something similar for its plebes: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/05/21/naval-academy-plebes-cap-greased-herndon-monument-in-annual-climb.html
When Hawley first met up with Jove, I thought “Oh no … bad news.” And yes to that. On the other hand, Jove never abandoned Hawley - when he was injured or in his run-in with King. I ended up liking him enough to feel sad that he got his boat but didn’t get to enjoy it.
Technically Jove is Zeus is Jupiter - god of the heavens, father to other gods, demigods, mortals. There’s your sky (heavens) analogy again I thinks Jove acts as a father figure to Hawley; he’s older, right?
Since we’ve got the Jove - Hercules connection:
I was shocked when Loo said how much liked Jove, how domesticated he seemed. Didn’t see that coming.
@ignatius - good point about “Jove/ Zeus” as a father figure . He saved Hawley by removing the first bullet- right ? He was an important recurring character.
He’s eight years older, so big brother figure maybe:
Loo notes how similar they are: “There was something about him that was like her father–and she’d never met anyone who was like Hawley before” (p. 236).
On the subject of Jove, there’s an exchange between him and Hawley that surprised me – Jove is filling him in on all the criminal gossip (“Rodriguez, he’s still inside, but Thompson got out about a year ago,” etc.):
So Jove has no idea that Hawley is the one who killed Nunn. And he is also delivering some pretty old news – Nunn would have died 13 years earlier. I guess Jove and Hawley haven’t been so good about keeping in touch. 
I got the impression that Hawley was off the grid - regarding anyone or anything - that could pinpoint his and Loo’s location once he had her. That included Jove. Hawley reached out for help from Jove in getting rid of the impounded cars he and Loo stole. If he hadn’t done that, Jove would be happily sailing on his boat elsewhere and Hawley and Loo still safely “in parts unknown.” King killed Jove knowing Hawley would come. Funny that being in prison saved King when Hawley was ridding his world of threats only to surface years later.
I was taken aback by the friendship of Jove and Hawley; those moments in the house where they’re reconnecting as close friends came as much as a surprise to me as it did to Loo. I guess I didn’t expect to see such loyalty and depth between criminal friends! My favorite scene with Jove is when he confronts Hawley about the shrine in the bathroom, and tells Hawley that what he’s doing is not remembering, that it’s basically killing yourself. It’s the kind of thing only a really trusted friend who is looking out for your best interests would say and get away with, and it was touching to me.
We can’t wrap things up without mentioning the 12th Labor of Hercules, “Cerberus.”
Hercules must battle Cerberus, the beast that guards the entrance to Hades, a “monster not to be overcome and that may not be described, Cerberus who eats raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, fifty-headed, relentless and strong.”
Sounds like Ed King to me.
Combat without weapons is required for this Labor of Hercules, and I noticed that Hawley and King fought with fists, their guns having fallen into the water. Also, Hercules does not kill Cerberus–he returns to guard Hades–and Hawley does not kill King. Neither does Loo. It certainly seems like King will never make it, but he does have a life jacket, so who knows. If he survives, that doesn’t bode well for Loo.
I am headed out of town into the semi-deep woods, so might not be able to post for a couple of days. Feel free to carry on – and to start pulling together ideas for our next book!
@Mary13 enjoy your semi deep woods experience - maybe see the Perseid Meteor Showers in those semi deep woods
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2018/8/8/17662240/perseid-meteor-shower-2018-peak-times
And, as far as Cerberus / King surviving.- I recall Loo’s last words after she wounded him was that the blood would attract sharks. Gruesome death. Guess he " will be sleeping with the fishes"
We’re off next week too, though I believe we will have access. It looks like we are getting mostly rain for our beach vacation. So not too many stars. Need to load up on books!
Thank you. And thank you to everyone else contributing on this thread.
Yes, thanks Mary! Hear from you when you get back!
Back to the book… I’d never thought of Jove as a father figure, but it makes total sense. It’s interesting how there are hints of Greek mythological connections, but she doesn’t bang you on the head with most of them. The other obvious one is the name of the town - Olympus. I think that mythic quality of the story makes me mind less that it’s location in time is unclear. I think she could have made it more explicit if she had wanted to.
Thanks @mathmom! Being from Masssachusetts, Olympus didn’t sound right as the name for a N. Shore fishing town, but now I get it! 
Picturing Mary13 in the woods and mathmom by the beach, reading away…enjoy!
In the Q & A below with Hannah Tinti, she says that Olympus is the only fictional setting in the book, a nod to Greek mythology, as @mathmom points out. Other interesting tidbits: the book began as a love story between Loo and Marshall; Tinti picked the name Samuel Hawley by walking through one of the old cemeteries in Salem; the bullet scars first became a concept when she started writing about the greasy pole contest and had to describe Hawley.
It’s cool how authors take bits and pieces and then change things around and somehow come up with a story. I would have thought that Hawley and the bullets would have materialized first. The interview also mentions the years it had taken to write the book…truly a Herculean labor, but we don’t see that part.
http://hannahtinti.com/books/the-twelve-lives-of-samuel-hawley/q-a/
Yes, Olympus didn’t sound familiar to me either. My brother lives in Gloucester and my parents spent a summer in Rockport. So I’m fairly familiar with the area.