Of the authors, dead or alive, who’d prompt me to be a groupie is Amor Towles (obviously among the latter category). His newest novel, The Lincoln Highway, is nearly 600 pages and I couldn’t wait to get lost in it. I did have to wait awhile for a copy, but once I held it in hand I felt like a kid on the first day of school: excited and apprehensive about what was to come.
Emmett Watson has just returned to his rural Nebraska home having served time for involuntary manslaughter. He plans to start a new life in Texas with his eight-year-old, wise-beyond-his-years brother, Billy, who has other ideas: to head west. He’s certain they’ll find their estranged mother in San Francisco and insists they travel the Lincoln Highway, a coast-to-coast route.
However, Emmett’s friends, Duchess and Woolly from the work farm, appear having stowed away in the trunk of a car. They have different plans for traveling the Highway, and they steal Emmett’s prized Studebaker to head east.
Emmett and Billy’s story becomes one of reclaiming not only the car but their journey’s purpose; Duchess and Woolly have other goals. All their adventures involve a cast of characters from the sublime to the absurd. What’s initially Emmett’s story soon becomes Duchess’s – his are the first person voice chapters; the others use third person voice.
The Lincoln Highway is an odyssey filled with heroes and monsters. It’s also where friends become family – with some selfish members and some more likeable than others.
The Lincoln Highway
Four-and-a-half Bookmarks
Viking Books, 2021
576 pages
The Blue Page Special 