From Salem to Gowanus: The odyssey of Hannah Tinti
Brooklyn BookBeat
It is refreshingly unusual to meet a writer whose work you greatly admire and to discover that the writer is warm, engaging, smart as a whip and as open as … well … a book. Hannah Tinti (who is a proud Gowanus resident) is the author of the 2004 short story collection “Animal Crackers,” the 2008 novel “The Good Thief” and, just published this month, “The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley,” which is an unqualified triumph. If you have room for only one book in your beach bag this summer, “Hawley” is it. The book is both a coming-of-age story and a thrilling tale of revenge and renewal. Think “The Road to Perdition” meets “Paper Moon,” with “Treasure Island” and “Great Expectations” thrown in for good measure. Compelling does not begin to describe its relentless pacing and narrative drive. Tinti is supremely confident, consistently fearless and prodigiously gifted — a trifecta that immediately vaults her to the pole position among American writers.
Recently, Tinti and I met at the Greenlight Bookstore on Fulton Street, where later in the evening she would be bartending at an event celebrating Independent Bookstore Day. We talked about “Hawley,” some of her favorite themes, her childhood in Salem, Massachusetts and why she lives in Brooklyn.
Below are edited excerpts from our conversation.