Should you be in the mood for an epic novel, an escapade, a rollercoaster ride and an adventure that never runs out of steam, look no further than this blockbuster of a book.
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is set in America, 1954 and spans Nebraska to California as well as through Pennsylvania to New York. The reader is taken on a road trip along the Lincoln Highway, the first road to be built that stretches across America. The mode of transport is a powder blue, four-door hardtop 1948 Studebaker Land Cruiser.
Eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is on his way home to Nebraska after serving his time at a juvenile work farm – the warden, driving him home, is unaware that two additional passengers are stowed in the trunk of the car. Woolly and Duchess, Emmett’s friends from the work farm have their own agenda for their “escape” and are integral in the caper that eventually unfolds.
Emmett’s father has recently passed away and the farm, on which his father tried unsuccessfully to eke out a living for years, has been repossessed by the bank. Billy, his eight-year-old brother, is waiting excitedly for Emmett to return home. Their mother left the farm many years ago, abandoning her husband and two sons. She was unable to endure the hardship and struggle any longer, after having been accustomed to a more refined lifestyle, growing up.
It is Emmett’s plan to travel to California to make his fortune there – during the summer holidays he worked with the local builder and learnt how to build and renovate houses. His dream is to buy property, sell the improved home and with the profits, buy the next property. Billy has a dream to go to San Francisco to find their mother – after she left the family home, several postcards sent by her indicated she settled in San Francisco. He believes that she will be at the Fourth of July Fireworks display as the last postcard she sent alluded to this fact. Duchess has unfinished business with his father, a Shakespearian actor of dubious morals. And Woolly…the fortune that he is entitled to is put into a trust but he knows how to lay his hands on the cash. Each of these four young men have their very own reason for the journey they undertake together and this, of course, is a recipe for a helter-skelter joyride of epic proportions.
Along the way, we are introduced to a wide variety of larger-than-life characters – heroes and villains and everyone in between. The variety of situations that the four travelling companions find themselves in range from the truly bizarre to the nerve-rackingly perilous. But never boring! Eight-year-old Billy ‘s pride and joy is his copy of Professor Abacus Abernathe’s Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers and Other Intrepid Travelers. This big red book is intrinsically interwoven into the adventure that the four young men face.
Although this book is just shy of 600 pages, I did not for one moment want it to end – I was enthralled by the sheer scale, charm and imaginative situations that was so artfully brought to life.
This is the first offering from Amor Towles that I have read but he has written two previous New York Times bestsellers, Rules of Civility as well as A Gentleman in Moscow.
The Lincoln Highway is published by Penguin. ISBN 978-1-786-33253-0S - Fiona de Goede
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