What a ride! Like the epic tales in Billy Watson’s Professor Abacus Abernathe’s Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers, The Lincoln Highway is a true epic tale. Throughout his and his brother Emmett’s labyrinthine adventure, eight-year-old Billy eagerly shares the compendium’s stories of mythical heroes with his traveling companions. All adults, they humor him as he reads these fascinating stories. But in savant-like fashion, Billy understands the heart of these stories and practices their lessons in the many scrapes the group gets into.
Their scrapes are usually the machinations of wily, slippery, sociopathic, but wildly entertaining Duchess (Daniel) Hewett. Billy and Emmett Watson’s aim is straightforward—to drive the Lincoln Highway from Nebraska to California. Billy wants to find their mother, who deserted the family when Billy was just a baby, and Emmett wants to not follow in his failed-farmer father’s footsteps and instead flip houses in San Francisco. When smooth-talking, pathological liar Duchess inserts himself into their plans by stealing Emmett’s car and money, the trip’s twists and turns begin. Duchess and simple-minded pal Woolly drive to New York for Duchess’ nefarious purposes, which necessitates the now-broke Watson boys’ boxcar train travel to find Duchess and Woolly and retrieve their car and money.
Oh, the storied characters they meet along the way! The pluck they show in finding Duchess and Woolly in New York City and in navigating unfamiliar territory! Their challenges to not repeat past mistakes! Amor Towles has written a storyteller’s dream novel. I could not have imagined the people in this book, which is a rich, character-driven, 576-page chase scene—creative, suspenseful, and engaging. As if the characters’ stories are not enough, Towles gives them each golden nuggets of wise observations to drop in the reader’s path.
Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway is a brilliant literary adventure. Even after reading the dust jacket plot summary, you will be clueless about the treasures within until you read the book.
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