Amor TowlesLiterary Fiction · Historical Fiction·b. 1964
The Lincoln Highway
Synopsis
In June 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson returns home to Nebraska after serving time for involuntary manslaughter. With his mother gone and father deceased, Emmett plans to take his eight-year-old brother, Billy, to California for a fresh start. However, two friends from the work farm have stowed away, presenting an alternate plan that sends them on an unexpected journey to New York City. Told over ten days and from various perspectives, this novel offers a rich exploration of characters and themes.
How it reads
Prose complexity 7/10
Content warnings (2)
Death Of A ParentTrauma
- Although this entire novel surreptitiously revolves around their road trip from Morgen, then from New York to California...somehow I felt that this had nothing to do with the journey per se. This entire book completely threads around the four protagonists, and certain other additional but essential characters, in trying to decipher them and reason them out against the backdrop of the times and the setting of the novel. It addresses a lot of issues and pains and dilemmas that one goes through in their late teens and especially, if they belong to a certain kind of households. I must say, Towles is a genius, because he didn't keep a single stone unturned - from the rich and homely hearth of Woolly's household, to the wandering gypsy and trickster of a father that Duchess had...he travelled from the highest to the lowest, to the luckiest to the worst of drudgery, to the most conscientious and the coolest, from the best to the worst of crimes, in sickness and in health, from marriage to rejection, to missing mothers to dying fathers. In other words, the novel is a potpourri of feelings, emotions, experiences and adventures. One of the best I've ever read❤️.
- Now, am I the only person that got some serious Serge A Storms vibes from Duchess? Please tell me that I am not the only one! I actually really liked this book and too be honest it could have been twice as long and I would not have minded. I thought Billy was a sweet kid. He was just so earnest and such a good little brother. His relationship with Emmett (his brother) was just too sweet. I did enjoy the book very much but I don't think it was as.... tightened up as I would like? I don't know. I just feel like there was something missing. Maybe drop a perspective or two and use the time to give me more meat on some characters or add to the overall length. Possibly devote more screen time to Billy and Emmett? I look forward to seeing what else the author has!