The Lincoln Highway: A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)

The time was June of 1954, the place was a bankrupt farm in rural Nebraska, and the two central characters in this work of fiction were the Watson brothers, Emmett who was eighteen and his little brother Billy, who was eight. Emmett had been serving a sentence at a boy's reformatory for his part in the unintentional death of a local bully, but when his father died of cancer, a decision was made to release Emmett so that he could return home to care for his little brother. Billy had been staying with neighbors awaiting his brother's return, while the bank had been preparing foreclosure documents on the family property. The neighbors were Sally, a nineteen-year-old friend of the Watson's, and her father. Sally was plainspoken to a fault and somewhat resentful of her lot in life - which seemed to be taking care of her father until some other man for her to take care of would come along, but she cared for Billy with the fierceness of a mother hen watching over her only chick. As the story opened, Emmett, who had been serving his sentence on a work farm in Salina, Kansas, was being driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the reformatory. Emmett had plans to pick up his brother, spend a final day or two in the farmhouse, and then head out to Texas with Billy where he would make his fortune buying, remodeling, and selling houses, all financed by the secret nest-egg of three thousand dollars that their father had managed to hide from his creditors at the bank. But Billy had a different plan. He had found a cache of postcards written by their mother just after she abandoned the family several years before - postcards that their father kept secret from the boys. The postmarks and notes on the cards indicated that after their mother left the family she had traveled along the Lincoln Highway, the nation's first transnational paved thoroughfare, headed for California. (The Lincoln Highway ran from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The Watson's farm was close to the halfway point on the highway.) Emmett had no interest in reconnecting with their mother, but Billy, who was little more than in infant when she left, did. He eventually managed to convince Emmett that California was growing faster than Texas and would be a better prospect for his home renovation plans. All of their plans, however, were thrown into a cocked hat when Duchess and Woolly, two other young men who were serving time at the facility in Salina with Emmett, turned up at the Watson's farm after having stowed away in the trunk of the warden's car just as the warden and Emmett were preparing to leave Salina and head for Nebraska. Duchess was the son of an itinerate vaudeville actor and spent a lot of time growing up on the road and in and around New York City. Woolly was the son of a socially prominent New York family. Duchess, a charming plotter and manipulator, wanted Emmett - who had his own car - to drive them to New York where Woolly would access a pile of cash ($150,000) which his grandfather had set aside for him in the family safe as a "trust fund." If Emmett would drive them, they would split the trust three ways and Emmett would be set for set up to be a major homebuilder in California. Emmett, who regarded himself as far more sensible than the other two former reformatory inmates, declined, but he eventually agreed to go out of his way and take them to the train station in Omaha where the escapees could board a train for New York City. However, while they were enroute to Omaha, Emmett managed to get distracted by another of Duchess's misadventures long enough for Duchess to "borrow" his car - and Duchess and Woolly headed off to New York leaving the Watson brothers stranded in rural Nebraska. Emmett called Sally who came and transported them to the train station in Omaha where Emmett intended to board a train and head to New York City to get his car back, But after Sally left them at the train station, Emmett realized that his money, the nest-egg of $3,000, was still in the trunk of his car under the spare tire. After some careful research, he found an express freight train that was headed to New York City, and he and Billy secreted themselves in a boxcar. And from there Emmett and Billy Watson began a journey which was marked by personal adventures and encounters with characters very reminiscent those experienced by Huck and Jim as they floated down the Mississippi on their raft in a bygone era. The Lincoln Highway is a character-driven tale that is and pulled along through narratives of each major individual in the story. The manner in which it is presented, through the varying viewpoints, enables readers to gain a fuller perspective of what is actually happening, and it adds to the compelling nature of story. The pages, nearly six hundred of them, turn quickly. While The Lincoln Highway, is a very satisfying reading experience, the plotting is far from predictable and it keeps the reader's attention with unexpected twists and turns, much like any drive along an unfamiliar road. It's a book that is hard to put down, and a story that is difficult to quit. While The Lincoln Highway almost begs a sequel, I hope that does not happen because a furtherance of this tale would only serve to dilute its magnificent impact. This is a wonderful story, Mr. Towles. Your countless accolades are well deserved!

This book wasn’t what I expected, and that’s a good thing. I like surprises. The characters are very individualized and three-dimensional. The story had twists and turns, and by the end you realize there are deeper meanings to it. I found myself relating to the characters in different ways. 18-year old Emmett has lost his father, his mother, and then his father’s farm, all while dealing with having just been released from a juvenile work farm for unintentionally killing another boy in a fight. Now he has to make a plan for himself and his 10-year old brother, Billy, to make a new life together. But Emmett’s well-laid plans to travel the Lincoln Highway from Nebraska to San Francisco to start that new life are thrown into chaos by the unexpected appearance of two other boys his age, Duchess and Wooly, both of whom had been at the work farm with him and escaped. Duchess is mercurial and chaotic, though often well-meaning, and Wooly is intellectually challenged, but kind. Along the way, the four boys come to meet some other notable characters who sometimes help them and sometimes challenge them. There are some almost-spoilers below, so stop here if you worry about it…. The name of the book is a bit misleading. The Lincoln Highway is really a “McGuffin” in that it triggers the plot but isn’t actually the planned route they ultimately follow. I didn’t mind that, but it did break the “contract with the reader” if you will, from the initial plan that was laid out early in the book. Really, the plot is driven by Duchess, a troubled boy who has his own motivations, which he justifies in different ways, that throws everyone else’s plans asunder. Frankly, all of the characters have tragic histories, which makes them very interesting. Another oddity about this book is that it starts sort of in the middle of the story (which is actually a plot point stated by Billy, who is obsessed with a book about heroes and their journeys), and at the end of the book you realize that the story hasn’t really ended for some of the characters yet. None of these things really take away from the quality of the story, it’s just something to note that sets this book apart from others and makes it unique. I will say, though, that Duchess was so much the driver of the story that all the other characters were a little weaker for it, where they were mostly reacting to Duchess in one way or another. One thing I definitely did not like, though, was that the dialogue is written without quotation marks. Rather, Towles uses a dash to signify when a speaker has started dialogue, but nothing to signify when they stop the dialogue. Thus, it was occasionally confusing when they stopped and the prose began. Towles also needed more dialogue tags, as sometimes I was confused who was speaking which sentences. Be prepared that this has a bit of a tragic ending that left me concerned for the motives of some of the characters I’d come to like. But overall, it was a worthy read.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is yet another triumph from a masterful storyteller. From the very first pages, Towles draws you in with his graceful prose and irresistible sense of momentum. The novel is set in 1954 and follows 18-year-old Emmett Watson as he sets off on a journey with his younger brother, Billy, intending to head west and start a new life. But when two friends from a work farm derail their plans, the road leads in a very different direction—east, toward New York City. Towles has a gift for crafting characters who feel fully alive. I found myself deeply invested in each of them: Emmett with his quiet resolve, Billy with his precocious charm, Duchess with his cunning and contradictions, and Woolly with his heartbreakingly innocent view of the world. The alternating perspectives add depth and nuance to their evolving relationships and the moral choices they face. Though the story takes place over just ten days, it has the emotional richness of an epic. The themes of redemption, loyalty, family, and destiny are explored with subtlety and grace. Towles doesn’t just write a road trip—he gives us a moving meditation on the detours life throws our way and how we navigate them. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy character-driven novels that combine literary elegance with narrative drive. Towles proves once again that he knows how to tell a story that lingers long after the final page.

A pleasure to read. The characters had that innocence of youth that is nearly impossible to capture once its gone. It’s also refreshing to read a story that isn’t obsessed with the dark side of human nature. It isn’t ignored in the story by any means, just not given pride of place. Each character has a fundamental decency. It’s also an achievement that the story is both magical and entirely possible.

I really wanted to love this book as I did the previous two by this author. Towles is an excellent and imaginative writer and it is hard to match A Gentleman in Moscow. But the novel, with its interesting content, was simply too long. After page 400 or so I began to wonder if it will ever end. New and interesting, but irrelevant characters kept popping up in the last part of the book, making the story drag on....and on. If you expect a novel about adventures along the historic highway, that's not it. If the characters ever got on Lincoln Highway, it would have been after the events in the novel. Overall, the book is a collection of beautifully written chapters that jump (too often for me) from one character to another, presenting their own individual philosophies and their perspectives on the same episodes in their lives. While switching from one perspective to another may keep you in suspense for a while, at one point it becomes distracting and the story overinflated. Furthermore, the author's strategy of introducing new and seemingly unrelated characters and details throughout the book to tie them all together in the end worked very well in A Gentleman in Moscow. The same strategy lost the power of novelty in Lincoln Highway. It seems as if the editors did not interfere too much, maybe hating to cut out some good writing, and knowing the popular author will sell, but they did not do Towles any favors in the long run.

*Very minor spoilers* The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. "When it comes to waiting, has-beens have had plenty of practice. Like when they were waiting for their big break, or for their number to come in. Once it became clear that those things weren't going to happen, they started waiting for other things. Like for the bars to open, or the welfare check to arrive. Before too long, they were waiting to see what it would be like to sleep in a park, or to take the last two puffs from a discarded cigarette. They were waiting to see what new indignity they could become accustomed to while they were waiting to be forgotten by those they once held dear. But most of all, they waited for the end." I was taking a training and noticed that my (new to me) coworker next to me had a book themed sticker on their laptop. When the break rolled around we talked about books. She told me she just finished the Lincoln Highway and that she really liked it. I put the book on my wishlist and a day or so later found my wife bought it for me. At this point, I knew it was hardcover and had a train on the cover. By happenstance, I'd finished my last book when this one arrived so on sight of hundreds of unread books I read the newest one in the pile. The Lincoln Highway is the story of three young men and an adolescent boy traveling across the United States in 1954. They all have their motivations for their trek. The book is an interesting review of mid-century America. There's a jail break, a lengthy discourse on making preserves, revenge, manslaughter, mental heath, an erotic circus, a mythic hobo, a professor writing about heroes from the Empire State Building, a washed up alcoholic vaudevillian Karl Marx impersonator, nuns, fetuccini, sneaking aboard freight trains, silver dollars, and salvation. More than anything I suppose the book is about family, specifically fathers. What I enjoyed most were the characters. As the preceding paragraph might suggest the characters can be larger than life as are the situations they find themselves in. At nearly 600 pages the characters have plenty of time to develop. I will say despite the length a few pages seemed wasted. While this book is definitely about the journey there are a few parts of the book that seem to slow down. By the end of the volume there are also a quite a few plot threads that aren't resolved which is probably my chief detraction from the book. In spite of a few resolutions missing from the book I didn't necessarily feel cheated or that I'd wasted my time with the book. Towles' writing, characterization, and settings are superb. He also drops a few lines of prose that are terrific. Overall I'd definitely cross the country with these characters again. 5/5.

18-year-old Emmett Watson is the protagonist of LINCOLN HIGHWAY, the first transcontinental highway. He returns from reform school to deal with the foreclosure of his father’s farm. He has a plan to take his 8-year-old brother Billy to California and with the money his father has left him purchase a dilapidated house he can remodel and sell to purchase two more and so on and so on. He picks California because it has 16 million people who need housing. Billy wants to be in San Francisco by the 4th of July to meet their mother who had sent them postcards after leaving their father. The last one she sent was from San Francisco, and he expects to find her at the 4th of July celebration which she loved. Before Emmett can set off on his quest (this is definitely a quest novel, and Emmett is the hero) two of his friends from the reformatory show up. They hitched a ride in the trunk of the warden’s car that delivered Emmett to the farm. Duchess and Woolly steal Emmett’s Studebaker before he can begin his trip. The novel is divided into sections where we get various characters’ viewpoints. We learn from Duchess and Woolly that they “borrow” Emmett’s car to recover Woolly’s $150,000 inheritance. Emmett and Billy hitch a ride on a train to follow them and recoup Emmett’s car. Emmett thinks he knows where to find Duchess. Billy carries a big red book with him wherever he goes. He’s read it 35 times at one point. Professor Abacus Abernathe’s Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers is really the heart of the novel. Emmett and Billy are riding in the train when Emmett goes to find food. Billy is harassed by a hobo named Preacher John who tries to steal his silver dollar collection. A black man named Ulysses saves him. Billy explains where Ulysses got his name. He shows him the section on the Ulysses in his book and how he spent ten years trying to get home after the Siege of Troy. Ulysses has spent almost that long riding the rails trying to find his family which he lost while he was fighting in WWII. Ulysses is fascinated by the book. At one point he says the professor and Billy gave him hope which he had lost over time. Duchess is also obsessed with getting even with his father who was the reason he was sent to the reformatory. He doesn’t seem to realize he has more in common with his father than he had thought. Duchess will do anything to find get that $150,000 inheritance. Dear Reader, you will spend most of the book in the environs of New York City and upstate. Only towards the end will Emmett and Billy finally set off for California, but not before Sally shows up. Sally is the girl next door back home in Nebraska. She cooks and cleans and takes care of everybody with little thanks. She’s expecting a call from Emmett from New York. When she doesn’t get it, she hops in her truck and drives 20 hours to New York where the truck dies but not before she finds them with Woolly’s sister. She wants to go with them to California, and she won’t settle for anything less. There’s a scene where Billy figures out a combination to Woolly’s great grandfather’s safe that you won’t believe, but you have to remember that Billy is a mystical kid who was saved by the reincarnation of Ulysses. There are charming sections of this book. Woolly is another lovable character. He literally wouldn’t hurt a fly, and his destiny will make you sad. I was also rooting for Sally. Emmett doesn’t seem to realize that their relationship is written in the stars.

’...for most people, it doesn’t matter where they live. When they get up in the morning, they’re not looking to change the world. They want to have a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, put in their eight hours, and wrap up the day with a bottle of beer in front of the TV set. More of less, it’s what they’d be doing whether they lived in Atlanta, Georgia, or Nome, Alaska. And if it doesn’t matter for most people where they live, it certainly doesn’t matter where they’re going.' 'That’s what gave the Lincoln Highway its charm.' 'When you see the highway on a map, it looks like that Fisher guy Billy was talking about took a ruler and drew a line straight across the country, mountains and rivers be damned. In so doing, he must have imagined it would provide a timely conduit for the movement of goods and ideas from sea to shining sea, in a final fulfillment of manifest destiny. But everyone we passed just seemed to have a satisfied sense of their own lack of purpose.Let the road rise up to meet you, say the Irish, and that’s what was happening to the intrepid travelers on the Lincoln Highway. It was rising up to meet each and every one of them, whether they were headed east, headed west, or going around in circles.’ The Lincoln Highway reads like one of those long Sunday drives wandering here and there without a specific destination in mind, wandering to and fro... Until, that is, all the back roads it follows lead to one road which was your fate. Like The Long and Winding Road which leads to your door, the place where you end up even when it wasn’t your destination, but more like your destiny. It floats along, and we’re glad to be a part of the journey, even if we are only silently observing these characters, and the journeys - both physical and emotional - they are on. It has the adventure of Tom Sawyer, and the charm, as well as the relative innocence associated with the era which makes for a delicious combination. A sense of an almost magical journey that offers a wistfulness that gives a nod to that There’s no place like home essence of Dorothy’s journey, including the flying monkeys, with the wicked witch replaced by other nefarious characters in search of this story’s version of the ruby slippers, with the charm of Dorothy’s crew of the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and the Tin Man being found in the characters in the journey of The Lincoln Highway. Courage, heart and brains make up the ingredients for the magical spell this casts. Throw in a sprinkling of a few Marx brothers type moments for some laughs, as well. What made this seem both charming and believable was the sense of love, forgiveness and a hopeful confidence that the journey they embark on will come true, that sense of hope is at the heart of it all. A sense of believing in all those seemingly trite sayings that still seem to hold a ring of truth. Most of the characters in this, and there are many, seem imbued with that old school confidence and quirky charm, although there are exceptions. In order to appreciate the goodness of life, and protect it, we have to remember that there are others who would steal it, given the chance. 'A tale not from a leather bound tome, mind you. Not from an epic poem written in an unspoken language. Not from an archive or athenaeum. But from life itself.' 'How easily we forget---we in the business of storytelling---that life was the point all along. A mother who has vanished, a father who has failed, a brother who is determined. A journey from the prairies into the city by means of a boxcar with a vagabond named Ulysses. Then to a railroad track suspended over the city as surely as Valhalla is suspended in the clouds.'