I just finished Amor Towles’ “The Lincoln Highway” and was blown away by the quality of the story-telling. The book is a gripping page-turner, highly recommended.
Set in 1950’s America, 18-year-old Emmet Watson has just returned home after serving a sentence at a juvenile institution for involuntary manslaughter. His father has recently passed away, and the bankers are in the process of foreclosing on his farm. Emmet’s mother left the family when Emmet was a young boy, to go live in San Francisco.
It is 12th June, and Emmet and his young brother Billy plan to drive to California with a $3,000 inheritance from their father. They plan to find their mother (who had left a series of postcards as clues as to where she was going) at the 4th July fireworks at the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, San Francicsco, but fate gets in the way, when two co-offenders, Woolly and Duchess, show up at the house, having been stowaways in the warden’s car as he dropped Emmet off.
The story has several themes skilfully woven through it including debt and atonement, the intervention of fate, greed, decisions and consequences, and adventure.
Emmet, Woolly and Duchess all met at the juvenile institution, and were there for different reasons. Emmet, the protagonist in the story was there for an unfortunate incident that led to the involuntary manslaughter. Woolly, a societal outcast was sent also for an unfortunate prank incident gone wrong, and Duchess, the antagonist, was unfairly framed by his father for stealing a watch. Woolie comes across as a harmless but naïve character, who has health issues. Duchess is a “takes no prisoners” character, who is out for revenge at all costs, including to his father, an old master at the juvenile detention centre, and other people whom he committed wrongs against either him, or others (including Emmet).
The book is filled with endless twists and turns. With the intention to set off for California with his brother Billy, Emmet warily agrees to give a lift to the nearby train station to Duchess and Woolie, who aim to go to New York. Next thing, Duchess and Woolie have stolen Emmet’s car to drive to New York, for Duchess to exact his revenges against certain characters, as well as to take Woolie to his family holiday home in the Adirondacks where a large amount of money is locked away in a trust for him.
Set over a course of about ten days, the four boys criss-cross America, having an adventure of a life-time. Personally, I thought the way the book ended in the pond outside the holiday house was unfortunate. For Emmet, who is seen as the determined and strong hero, I felt the way he treated Duchess at the end was not reflective of this character.
I love the way Amor Towles weaves interesting facts and life lessons into the story. For example, I learned where the saying “Crossing the Rubicon” comes from. The Rubicon is a river in Italy, and instead of obeying the Senate’s rules which forbade entering the borders of Rome without its permission, Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon in 49 BC, thus starting the Roman Civil War, where he became the leader of Rome.
Towles writes of the ancient Greek fictional concept called Xenos, which means someone who plays an important role in a hero’s journey as an ally, attributing this concept to young Billy because of the way he shows up to help Emmet on various occasions during the book.
One of the characters of the book is Ulysees, a World War 2 veteran, who has ridden freight trains across America over the past ten years, having returned from service to find his wife and child having left him. He comes across Billy on the train ride, and protects him from the evil character Pastor John. Having felt lonely and abandoned, crushed by the hardships of life, Ulysees tells Billy a story when he was lying in a graveyard during a tornado, whilst travelling through Iowa, when he realized that no-one in life is coming to your aid, not even God, and that what happens to you is totally up to you.
“If I learned anything in the war, it’s that the point of utter abandonment – that moment at which you realize no one will be coming to your aid, not even your Maker – is the very moment in which you may discover the strength required to carry on. The Good Lord does not call you to your feet with hymns from the cherubim and Gabriel blowing his horn. He calls you to your feet by making you feel alone and forgotten. For only when you have seen that you are truly forsaken will you embrace the fact that what happens next rests in your hands, and your hands alone”
