The Lincoln Highway

 

by Pa Rock

Reader

As I hinted in yesterday's posting, I may have finally come across the novel that I have always been seeking, a book that I was somehow destined to read.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is an amazing work of fiction.   Amazon.com, the on-line retail giant and a commercial force that relentlessly studies our on-line purchases, reviews, and browsing history, began telling me through solicitation emails months ago that The Lincoln Highway  was a book that I had to read, but I resisted the urge to get involved in another long reading experience.  I had previously read Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow, and was very impressed with it, but somehow I was not adequately motivated to spend time with another major work by the same author.

Then my friend Bill plugged both of those novels in his "Gates' Notes," and said that while he enjoyed them both, he felt that The Lincoln Highway was actually even better than A Gentleman in Moscow, and, as a reader who respects Bill Gates' opinions on literature, I finally relented and ordered a hardback copy of Amor Towles' latest work.

Ordering The Lincoln Highway was a very good decision.

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!