It's 1954 and 18 year old Emmett has just returned to his family home in Nebraska after serving an 18 month sentence for involuntary manslaughter. He is met by the local bank manager who tells him the bank is calling in its loan and, to meet the debt, the property must be sold. Emmett, now re-united with his 8 year old brother Billy, decides they'll drive his sky blue Studebaker all the way to California and start life anew.
But fate changes his plans when the doorbell rings and there are two men standing there. The result is instead of heading East with just two people in the car he ends up driving to New York with 4.
And so Towles sets the scene for an immensely entertaining story into which he fits unforgettable characters - especially 8 year old Billy - and mixes them with a plot that provides humour, danger, fantasy and adventure.
It's a story that is truly delightful. Just join these four characters in the Studebaker and enjoy the ride.

The Lincoln Highway
Amor Towles
Four stars
The story opens in June 1954 with our hero Emmett Watson being driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile institution where has just finished a 15-month sentence for involuntary manslaughter. His father is dead, his mother has long since abandoned him and his little brother Billy, and the bank has foreclosed on the farm. What he does possess is a powder blue Studebaker and his plan is to pick up eight-year-old Billy and head to California for a fresh start.
But when he gets to the farm he discovers two fellow inmates from the correctional facility have stowed away in the boot of the warden’s car: the charming but untrustworthy Duchess and the more serious and troubled Woolly. When Duchess steals the car, Emmett must head in the opposite direction, towards New York, to reclaim his wheels.
Along the way the four youngsters encounter colourful characters, from drifters and conmen to arcane authors.
This book confounded my expectation which was of an all-American road trip epic. Instead the journey was into the souls of these engaging four characters as they faced challenges, peril and moral quandaries.
If you’ve read Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow you’ll know that this is an author who knows how to end a book with panache and The Lincoln Highway’s climax will have you gasping in admiration.

I had previously read A Gentleman in Moscow and loved it. I think I might love The Lincoln Highway even more.
Set in 1954 - an America on the cusp of much of its great postwar cultural shifts - the ermergence of rock n' roll for example - and many of what we now see as staples of classic Americana - the story is a roadtrip, told over 10 days or so. Emmett Watson and his little brother Billy are leaving Nebraska for California for fresh start, after the death of their father and the foreclosure of their Nebraska farm. However, they immediately run into a complication in form of two of Emmett's fellow inmates from the Kansas youth facility he's just returned from: Woolly and Duchess. What was supposed to be a journey to California becomes a journey to New York, where they'll get into various scrapes and meet various characters along the way.
Speaking of characters, the ones in this are brilliant, some we meet in third person and others in first, but all so rounded that the third person viewpoints never felt flat by comparison, and nearly all of whom you'll miss spending time with once it's over.
Can totally see this as a film, made in the style of the films of the period it's set in (in fact, could someone please make that happen!).
And those last few pages - wrenchingly bittersweet, verging on heartbreaking. (And I mean that as the highest form of compliment.)
*Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for feedback*

Emmett Watson has just been released from the juvenile work farm where he has spent eighteen months after accidentally killing another boy in a fight. While he was inside, Emmett’s father died and the bank has foreclosed on the mortgage on their Nebraskan farm, so now Emmett is left with only his car and $3,000 dollars his father has hidden for him away from the bank’s clutches, and his younger brother Billy to care for. Emmett was never keen on farming anyway, so he intends to take Billy to Texas and start a new life there. But Billy wants to go to California since he has found some postcards from their mother, suggesting that’s where she headed when she abandoned them long ago. And then two boys from the work farm show up, Duchess and Woolly, having hidden in the boot of the car that brought Emmett home. They have a different plan of where they want to go, and they want to persuade Emmett to come along. So the four boys set off on a journey, following the Lincoln Highway first east to New York, and then planning to drive from there west, all the way to the other coast…

I love Amor Towles’ writing. He has moments of beauty, moments of humour, occasional shafts of intriguing insight into history or literature or human nature, and he creates lovely characters. His characters rarely ring fully true, but they have that quality of the heroes and heroines of olden times, when we seemed able to accept people as wholly good in a way that feels rather out of place now in contemporary fiction. He gets away with this partly because of the quality of the writing, partly because he sets his novels in the past, and partly because he creates a kind of fairy tale atmosphere, where this reader at least can happily put her disbelief to one side for a while and simply enjoy the story.

Here, the three boys from the work farm are all good-hearted, kind and generous – the problems that led them there all arising as a result of useless, though not intentionally cruel, parenting. They all put each other above themselves, never behave inappropriately in front of eight-year-old Billy, and rarely do anything much that rises above the level of endearing naughtiness. The exception is Duchess, who is occasionally startlingly violent, but always for excellent, generous reasons. It’s all very Walton-esque – one can well imagine John-boy being just such a lad had he ever ended up in a work farm. Or perhaps like Jo’s Boys, where a little love is enough to wipe away the mostly deeply embedded trauma. Not believable, but reassuring to readers turning quiveringly away from real life in search of a bit of respite.

It’s a long and slow book – one to savour rather than to race through. Not much happens for most of it, just a series of minor incidents, most of them with a humorous edge though with an occasional moment of something a shade darker. The viewpoint jumps from boy to boy, sometimes first person, sometimes third, sometimes present tense, sometimes past, and along the way we gradually get to know each boy well, and learn about the history of their lives and what has brought them to this point. It took me a while to slow down to the book’s pace but once I had, I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them all, even precociously annoying little Billy. I found I was looking forward to picking the book up each night to take me to a gentler, kinder world for a while…

And then, as he has done before, Towles spoils it all with an ending that I hated. I won’t go into detail for fear of spoilers, but the ending made me drop a star and makes me hesitant about recommending what up to that point had been heading towards being one of my books of the year. Oh, well! The other reviews tell me plenty of people loved the book wholeheartedly, so if it appeals to you, don’t be put off by my reaction...

Having read and adored A Gentleman in Moscow, I had high hopes for this book which I did enjoy but not quite as much as expected.
This homage to 1950’s Americana takes the reader on a road trip across the north-eastern US with many detours and side trips, crossing paths with a variety of characters.
Beginning in June 1954 when a warden brings 18 year old Emmett Watson back home from a detention centre after Emmett has served time for involuntary manslaughter. His father is dead and the bank has called in loans so the farm is to be sold. When Billy, his 8 year old brother, shows him a map of the Lincoln Highway, they intend to drive west to California. Unbeknown to the brothers, two inmates, Duchess and Wooly, have stowed away in the warden’s car and so the scene is set for a very different kind of road trip from that which the brothers intended.

Told from multiple points of view, this is a well written and imaginative narrative. The main characters are superbly crafted and the cast of heroes and villains takes the reader into unexpected and lively scenarios, with surprises and shocks along the way. However, I confess to skim reading some parts as I felt the story meandered a bit too much with so much detail I lost interest, it’s certainly a lengthy read.

Overall, I think this is a very good novel. The narrative is character driven and engaging and I would definitely read more from this author.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House UK/Cornerstone for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Amor Towles is not the most prolific of authors, but this was certainly worth the wait. It has no connection to Gentleman in Moscow in its setting or characters. It has a completely different mood but is no less atmospheric. As one might expect this is no ordinary road trip. The descriptive language is just sublime, evoking America and its people in every facet of life. I could not put this down. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley for approving me for this ARC.

I adored The Lincoln Highway! From the beginning of the book, I was hooked. I though the plot was fast-paced and the characters were so likeable and when they weren't likeable the characters were interesting and complex.

The road-trip element of the story means we, the readers, are invited to join the ride: A ride filled with great twists and turns along a road filled with glorious moments that had me smiling as I read. I thought some parts were perhaps a little unbelievable and over the top but ultimately it added to the entertainment.

Well-written and enjoyable! I highly recommend this book.

I loved A Gentleman in Moscow by this author so had a good feeling about this book. It's a very enjoyable story. It's a diffferent set of characters but the gentleman theme runs through this book also - how the characters try to do the right thing, make the right moral choices, how they try to make amends for poor decisions in the past is a central theme. The writing is wonderful - we are transported to a time and place and held firmly there. Would highly recommend this book

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author Amor Towles.
I absolutely loved 'A Gentleman in Moscow' so had high expectations for 'The Lincoln Highway', and I wasn't disappointed. Towles continues to write with huge skill and the story is told beautifully and is totally engaging. The characters are so well-developed they each almost deserve an entire story of their own.
I would highly recommend this book, and look forward to reading more from this author. 5 stars.

On a beautifully written adventure set in the 1950s America, so brilliantly imagined that you feel like you're part of the journey. Unforgettable characters, panoramic scenes, just all you need during this time. I remember loving my experience reading ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ and ‘The Rules of Civility’ in 2017, so I got excited when I learnt that ‘The Lincoln Highway’ would be released this year. It certainly didn't disappoint. It felt like I was reading one of those great American coming-of-age novels.⁣
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The story begins with how the 18-year-old Emmett Watson is being driven home to Nebraska by the warden of Salina, the juvenile work farm where he served for involuntary manslaughter. As he’s about to head to California with Billy, his 8-year-old brother, to start a new life, he discovers that two friends from Salina, Duchess and Woolly, have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. There begins the story of their fateful journey in the opposite direction of the highway, to the New York City. I particularly love how the story is told so convincingly through multiple perspectives from the different characters. ⁣
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I love the beautiful prose and highlighted many passages. Like the one below.⁣
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“… And from all of these pages upon pages, one thing I have learned is that there is just enough variety in human experience for every single person in a city the size of New York to feel with assurance that their experience is unique. And this is a wonderful thing. Because to aspire, to fall in love, to stumble as we do and yet soldier on, at some level we must believe that what we are going through has never been experienced quite as we have experienced it.”⁣
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By the end of their 10-day journey, I was in awe, and I just really want to do the American road trip I never got to do. ⁣
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What a stunner, and a rather unforgettable one.

The incredible Amor Towles brings us yet another beautiful, poignant, and gripping story in “The Lincoln Highway”. We meet Emmett, a sensitive 18-year old young man, upon his release from juvenile detention in early 1950s Nebraska. He has returned home to his young brother Billy following the death of their father. The two brothers decide to leave the family farm and head to California to find their estranged mother, but their plans are scuppered by two other young men from the detention centre, Duchess and Woolly, who escaped in the boot of the car transporting Emmett home and who have plans of their own!

What follows is a series of escapades, hijinks, and seemingly incidental moments that combine to form something of an Odyssey in the lives of Emmett and his brother. The writing is rich and multi-layered and each and every character is just perfect for the role they play. The story is told from a number of viewpoints and each one was fascinating and thoughtful and offered so much to delve into and enjoy. I genuinely wanted to spend more time with all of these characters, and was sorry to leave them when the story ended. I will absolutely read anything that this author writes, so very much look forward to whatever comes next.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Amor Towles does it again! Another spectacular and engrossing story that captures your heart and imagination from the get go! Another one of those books where I didn't want it to end and feel bereft without these characters in my imagination anymore!!

The story picks up with Emmett being driven home by the warden, back to his younger brother who has been with neighbours since Emmett was taken away a year ago. He is regretful over his choice of action in the past and vows to make up for it, especially where his family is concerned. With his house being foreclosed on, it's time for he and Billy (his wonderful brother!) to make a new life elsewhere and that was their plan - until Duchess and Wooly show up! They've hitched a ride with the warden too, albeit without his knowledge, and now they have scores of their own to settle.

What follows is a road trip with a difference! They all set out together , get parted, reunited, and you're constantly on edge as you watch their new paths unfold. The detail in the characters and their personalities are beautifully written, especially the brothers, and it's just a masterclass of the connection between humans. The disappointments, regrets, hopes and fears and I just totally lost myself in their world.

Their paths collide again in New York as Emmett tries to get his plans back on track but things don't always work out as he envisaged. Billy is just a wonder of a character - a wise old soul in a very young body, and I just found his outlook on life so amazing and innocent. I was smitten!! It's emotional and captivating in equal measures. Told from various viewpoints, it's seamless in flow and never dips in pace or drama!

This has been one of my favourite reads of 2021 and I'm already itching to pick it up again and start the journey with them all over again! Brilliant!!

A modern day odyssey with villains and heroes, trials and tribulations, friendship and hope. The eponymous Lincoln Highway is referred to frequently but is seldom travelled. Instead we have our protagonists and ‘heroes’ journeying east rather than west, seeking out old acquaintances, settling accounts and searching for their ‘gold at the end of the rainbow.’ With a multiplicity of characters and several points of view, the story has lots of sideways meanderings. The prose is entertaining and the dialogue authentic. At times whimsical, at times matter-of-fact even when dealing with retribution, the story reaches an unhappy conclusion for some of the characters and an undocumented future for the others.

I am struggling to work out what to take away from this story. It was enjoyable enough to read but then what? I’m left with a feeling of being unsatisfied.

Five-star read! Huge book but so well-written and so interesting. I didn't want to put it down. I fell in love with the characters and didn't want the story to end.

The Lincoln Highway is an adventure-filled historical fiction focusing on a fresh start, and the many ways it can be derailed. The journey spans half a continent but takes place over 10 days, following 18-year old Emmet Watson after his release from juvenile prison. His plan is to travel on the Lincoln Highway from Nebraska to California with his little brother Billy. But two stowaways, Duchess and Woolly, have a different idea and pull the Watson brothers in a whole new direction.

Amor Towles’ writing is full of wisdom, but laced with humour and levity. It feels very heartfelt, thanks to the philosophical musings balance with connections between characters. Although this book is the tale of an adventure, it’s not overly fast-paced or thrilling. Towles takes his time in setting the scene and mindset of his characters. His literary fluency is stirring, make it easy for the reader to invest in this road trip of a lifetime.

The book has multiple POVs, which gives you a well-rounded view of each personality. I love the way Towles introduces his characters, using their backstories to create distinctive plot points to then satisfy events as they develop. They’re well-crafted young characters, with flaws and misguided expectations but oddities that make them loveable.

This is a book with a lot of heart. At the centre is brotherhood, hope, and redemption, as well as themes of race, class, and mental illness. The journey along the Lincoln Highway is one worth following, just to experience Towles’ description of events and fetching dialogue. It’s a beautifully written story, well-articulated, and crafted with layers that’ll certainly pull you along for the ride.

My journey with the Lincoln Highway took me over a month..If I was describing this in terms of food I would compare it to the richest most perfect desert which is so full of flavour and deliciousness that you do not want to rush one bit of it. The minute I finished this novel I wanted to go straight back in. I feel inadequate to do this justice. For me is was epic, a masterpiece.

Emmett returns to his father’s farm and 8 year old brother, Billy. Their father has recently died. Billy wants the brothers to travel along the Lincoln Highway to find their Mother. Unbeknownst to them two other boys have escaped the work farm and hitched a ride and have other plans..

There is so much to love about this novel. From the minute I started reading it felt immense, epic. It conjured up feelings I experienced when watching the incredible film, The Road to Perdition - and it felt incredible visual. The story features many road trips and there’s a wonderful sense of place - there’s even a map at the start at the beginning to guide you. Each destination has associations with hopes and dreams, past relationships, with making peace or settling scores and ties into the story of each of the boys and how they came to the work farm.

There are so many incredible characters in this novel but my favourite is Billy. In fact I think Billy might just be my new favourite character ever. Short on years, he is nevertheless, a seam of deep and wonderful wisdom. This is the kind of wisdom which comes from an intuitive and logical perspective, often quite literal his observations are sometimes funny and always make you wonder why you had never thought of that before.

This is such a big novel and it is worth every bit of the time you spend with it..I feel the story will live with me forever.
With grateful thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Randomhouse for a digital copy of this wonderful book.

I absolutely loved this book. It's brilliantly written, with multiple viewpoints reflected in the writing, depending on who's story is being told.

All the characters are perfectly described, the writing style different depending on who we're looking at, and the right level of humour.

A story of two brothers: one driven by doing right in the world, after doing wrong; the other, a young autistic boy, full of intelligence and a love of history and explorers. We meet so many different people, but it never felt too much.

A Ulysses within a Ulysses on their own odyssey. With murder, jokes, violence, brothership and love thrown in.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, published by the Penguin Random House-owned Viking Press.

Although this is the former financier-turned-New York Times-bestselling author's third book, this is the first time I've read his work. I enjoyed this so much, I'm immediately going to seek out his other writing.

The plot is deceptively simple - and no spoilers here, I promise. The year is 1954. Due to his father's death from cancer, the protagonist, 18-year old Emmett Watson, is released early from a juvenile prison work camp in Kansas.

After receiving a ride home from a kind warden, he arrives back at his father's farm in Nebraska. The farm's about to be foreclosed, and a previous event has made Emmett unpopular in the community. So rather than hanging around, he decides to dust off his prized Studebaker. His plan is to travel across the United States via the titular Lincoln Highway in the hopes of making a fresh start with his little brother, the lovable, 8-year old Billy, who's now in his care.

However, what was supposed to have been in a relatively straightforward journey meanders down unexpected paths for the brothers and those they meet along the way. Towles has a gift for creating characters who'll live on in your memory long after you've finished reading the last page.

Such a beautiful, well crafted story. I wanted it too last forever. It is all about the characters. Main characters, secondary characters and tangential ones. Each has a story or connection. The main characters of Emmett and his brother Billy are attempting to get to San Francisco following the Lincoln Highway. Their plans are thwarted, reversed and derailed at times by Duchess and Wooly who start out with them. This is the story of their journey and adventures. It is addictive, warm and engaging. I will probably re read and gift this book. What a story teller Amor Towles is

The Lincoln highway was brilliant. An absorbing read with great strong characters and kept me interested all the way to the end. I will look out for more written by Amor Towles.