It’s June 12th 1954 and Warden Williams is taking eighteen year old Emmett Watson home from Salina, a juvenile reform program after which Emmett’s debt to society is paid in full. His father has died, his bank loans against it are called in and the farm is to be sold. His eight year old brother Billy shows him a map of the Lincoln Highway stretching east to west, their intention is to drive Emmett's 1948 Studebaker Land Cruiser westwards to San Francisco. However, best laid plans and all that, when everything is thrown up in the air by the unexpected arrival of Duchess and Woolly from Salina. What transpires over the next ten days is very far from what the Watson brothers imagine especially as it becomes clear that Duchess and Emmett are on a collision course. The story is told from multiple points of view.

What an adventure! It is no surprise that this is brilliantly written, it’s extremely creative, imaginative and so vivid. The characters are superbly crafted, they feel authentic and real and whilst three of them have erred there is an elegant yet simple morality to them , with Emmett being an especially good man. Billy for me is the stand out character, I just fall in love with his thoughtful yet simple approach to life, his sweetness, wisdom and intelligence and particularly how he is inspired and guided by Professor Abacus Abernathe’s Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers and other Intrepid Travellers. This is a key component of the novel and a great deal mirrors the compendium with a sense of it being prophetic. There ARE heroes, certainly adventurers, they meet intrepid travellers and on more than one occasion the book saves Billy and the rest of them. Their journey deviates, as does the storytelling but it does take you to some magical and fantastical places. At times the book is funny, at others it makes you uneasy and has shocks and surprises along the way. As the story meanders east before heading west
( you’ll have to read the book to find out why 😁) on occasions it feels like a madcap movie like a Chaplin or Keaton silent film caper which incidentally are mentioned in passing(!) with these scenes being especially delicious!! The dialogue is ‘absotively’ brilliant making you want to join in. As it reaches a conclusion it takes a darker turn, which I guess has been in the cards with the signs there for all to see.

Overall, I think this is an excellent and original novel. The storytelling is lively, engaging, takes the reader on a wild ride as it twists and turns away from the brothers original intention and into some lively and unexpected situations. It’s a character driven study with all the facets of humankind on display, the good, the bad and the endearingly wonderful.

With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

Set in 1954 this is a version of the classic American road book, with 4 mismatched young men driving across the US, each with a different goal in mind, meeting a variety of characters and situations along the way. It has much of the warmth associated with Towles’ writing but grit too. I didn’t find it entirely engaging and wonder if it’s just too baggy and long. I enjoyed it overall but found my mind wandering quite a lot as I was reading.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy.

The most uplifting big hearted romp of a book I absolutely adored it .It rushes along in a jaunty fashion full of wit and humour .The book is intelligent interesting and different .Reminded me a bit if some of John Irving’s books .
The story is told from the point of view of a selection of characters 3 of whom are youths on the run from a reform school in 50’s USA
The characters are simultaneously larger than life and at the same time complex detailed depictions of recognisable people
The novel is warm and joyful whilst also having sections that are horrific and heartbreaking
I haven’t read a book for a while that I enjoyed quite as much
There is something for everyone , brotherhood ,friendship,and strained relationships with fathers ,a theme that rubs throughout the book .
I would strongly recommend this book to almost anyone

I’ve loved the author’s other books but this one was possibly even better. Rich and detailed but so well-plotted. Masterful. It will no doubt be an enormous bestseller and deserves to be.

I did love this book - the characters and setting in time and place appealed to me from the start. Emmett and Billy set out to travel along the Lincoln Highway to California, but their plans get sidetracked by the people they meet along the way. I was enjoying the journey but towards the end I began to feel the stories were stretched a little too far and I was slightly disappointed by the ending.

This is an intriguing book, very well delivered. Emmett Watson has served time in juvenile detention having killed a friend in a fight and is now taken home where his father and mother no longer live. So he is there to look after his eight year old brother Billy. Billy is a superbly well constructed character in the book as a boy who knows far to much for his age and keeps everyone else right. A particularly attractive feature is his knowledge of literature, particularly classical. The idea is that the brothers will leave their home, now taken over because of the father’s debts and drive to find their mother in California. However, when Emmett was delivered home by a warden, two of his fellow inmates hid in the trunk. That changes everyone’s plans and gives the excuse for the story to range more widely. The book is very well written, exceedingly well informed and ranging over a broad geographical and literary area. The characters of the four young people are well portrayed. It is an unusual and a read I recommend.

Definitely one of my books of the year. This discursive, eccentric map cap caper about 3 cons and a little boy going in search of their respective dreams in an old Studebaker up Lincoln HIghway is a joy from start to finish.. there are wild gooses chases, dead ends and moments of absolute poignancy.
Thank you for the opportunity to read this, I will be buying and recommending to all my friends.

This was my first Amor Towles novel and will certainly not be my last.

Firstly, I should say I love books about road trips so I was almost certain I was going to enjoy this.

Emmett is released from prison and makes his way home to be reunited with his brother, receiving a lift from the warden. What he doesn't know at the time is that two of his friends have hidden in the warden's boot and have broken out with him.

Emmett and his younger brother Billy plan on taking a road trip to find someone special but their plans are thwarted by the arrival of his unexpected visitors.

Whilst the trip becomes a bit too disjointed for me, Towles' writing takes the story to another level. Rarely will you read such beautiful prose and rarely will you read a book with so many wonderful characters, most of whom you will be rooting for along the journey.

Strap in and get prepared for an excellent novel and a trip you will not want to end.

Thanks to Random House UK, Cornerstone, and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I first heard and became a fan of Towles last year, listening to him talking to Nihal Arthanayake in The Penguin Podcast (recommended!!!). I quickly bought and read A Gentleman in Moscow, and afterwards Rules of Civility. Two very different novels but both hugely enjoyable and unforgettable. I was totally delighted to be able to read his last offering before publication thanks to Penguin via NetGalley, and I have (yet again!) not been disappointed.

As I started to read I was rather unsure as to what I was getting into. The characters were so young (one eight, the other three 18/19)... did I really want to read yet another American coming-of-age story? was this going to be a sort of On the Road narrative? didn't the Grapes of Wrath began somehow similarly? Well, not really.!! I was soon taken over by this "boys adventure" which can (and must!) be read at so many levels... I have loved all the (now clearly) Towlesian way with depicting objects, his interest in engaging with other books and narratives, his love of sharing (unpretentiously) hard (historical, popular, literary) knowledge, his (to my mind at least) playfulness with plot clues... and his always overwhelmingly funny yet poignant exploration of human experience and ethical concerns.

This is not a "realistic" novel, yet it is totally wrapped in a vivid (with that Towles cinematic touch) material world set in the USA and opening inside a car moving towards the small town of Morgen, Nebraska, in 1954. The titie, the LIncoln Highway, is a clear pointer to some of the topics which are openly discussed during this slow/fast paced story... (the Zeno paradox alright!! and let's not forget the tiramisu... yes, the tiramisu. I am still thinking about it. I even did a Google search to confirm my own knowledge).

I wouldn't be doing anybody a favour if I were to share anything about the plot because it really has to be discovered slowly but surely... this is a story of boys and men, of absent parents (mothers and fathers), of guilt and retribution, of coexisting worlds, of myth and mundanity, of ethical choices... a totally engrossing novel, highly recommended.

While reading Amor Towles’ new book, The Lincoln Highway, I’d occasionally pause and think this is magic, simply magic storytelling. Reminiscent of Coen brothers’ and Preston Sturges films, it is an old-fashioned caper, an American road trip novel, a story about boys on the cusp of adulthood and their plans and expectations for the future. At the same time, it is a novel about the past, both in terms of the characters’ families and upbringing and in its setting, in summer of 1954, when America itself was on the cusp of so many things (as the author explains on his website). It is an immersive, compulsive read and I devoured it in a couple of days.

As with all good road trips, expect detours and Towles offers a diverse cast of characters, from forgotten Vaudeville artists to vagabonds, while heroes mythical and Shakespearean provide inspiration and an occasional morale boost. It takes place over ten days, with alternating POV chapters told by both the main and the supporting characters.

However, as much as I loved reading The Lincoln Highway and imagining it on big screen as a sort of Oh Brother Where Art Thou, the next generation, I also couldn’t help feeling that it is just a bit too rose-tinted and nostalgic. It is a great story, Towles is a master storyteller and I don't mind nostalgia but at the same time, the novel glosses over issues including mental health, disorders, abandonment and at times lacks depth because of it. Still, an enjoyable read - three and a half stars which I'm rounding up to four and I’ll most likely devour whatever Towles comes up with next.

My thanks to Random House UK, Cornerstone and Netgalley for the opportunity to read The Lincoln Highway.

My name is Sarah and I'm an Amor Towles-aholic
Now please excuse me a while I wax lyrical about this humdinger of a story.

THIS BOOK!!!!!
OMG!!!

@amortowles has a way of writing characters that are so delicious it's like they burst from the page, fling an arm around your shoulders and give you a big kiss on the cheek!
I needed Billy Watson in my life so badly, he is such a beautiful character. He has been cared for by his neighbour while his brother Emmett was at a juvenile work farm for 18 months. Now returned to their foreclosed farm in Nabraska, Emmett has come to collect Billy and his Studebaker and head for California....or Texas....USA ROADTRIP!

Prepare yourself to go on an adventure on a road with so many bends and turns with a stunning cast of broken, damaged, adorable, heroic, unique and colourful characters who all get a chance to have their own say in this novel being told from numerous points of view.

The writing is beyond exquisit, the story is engaging and the settings are numerous and fascinating, (especially to me who is desperate to tour the USA)

Waxing lyrical complete

I'm missing this story already and may have to read it again

Emmett has been released early from a young person's correctional facility in Kansas due to the death of his father and his responsibilities towards his young brother Billy. It's a long, long drive from Kansas to his Nebraska home.

When he's been dropped off, he finds that he's had two stowaways - Duchess and Woolly - who are not due for release for some months.

While Emmett and Billy plan to head to California to find their mother, Duchess and Woolly have other plans. In the opposite direction.

And there's only one car....

A brilliant portrait of the relationships between these young men in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter.

With his mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett plans to pick up his eight-year-old brother Billy and head to California to start a new life.

But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have stowed away in the trunk of the warden's car. They have a very different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take the four of them on a fateful journey in the opposite direction - to New York City.

Bursting with life, charm, richly imagined settings and unforgettable characters, The Lincoln Highway is an extraordinary journey through 1950s America from the pen of a master storyteller.
What an absolute mind spinning, beautiful story this was!

It's 1954, and three young men and a boy are on the adventure of their lives, traveling through midwest American towards, they hope, a better life. Each has his own reason for the journey, and each has his own demons and eccentricities. The story spans just ten days, and is told from multiple points of view. One of the characters fulfils the “baddie” role; a charming and manipulative character who passes himself off as something he is not, and must be seen as an unreliable narrator.
Amor Towles explores human behaviour against the vivid backdrop of the American landscape, and he is a master of it. I loved his first two novels, and this one easily measured up to both of them. Towles has a seemingly effortless command of style and creates fascinating and compelling characters that you will really care for.
Witty, humorous, poignant and sophisticated, “The Lincoln Highway” is a gem and I savoured every riveting page of this wonderful book.