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The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is a big work of fiction about the complicated journey of adulthood. Towles’ previous book A Gentleman in Moscow, published in 2016, was a warmhearted tale that spent two years on the New York Times bestsellers list and set a high standard for The Lincoln Highway to follow. As a result, the book was met with much anticipation.
I’ve actually owned The Lincoln Highway for months, but the size is daunting (588 pages). I was also unsure of the story—18-year-old men on a road trip throughout the U.S. Still, I’ve seen so much praise but also plenty of negative reviews, so I was quite curious to read the story for myself.
And whew, I have so many thoughts. I felt everything from intrigue to boredom at times to absolute shock. This story is not what I expected in the slightest, which made for both an enlightening reading experience but also a bit of a confusing one as well. I go back and forth about what I think overall, so here’s my attempt to digest it for you.
What’s the Story About
First, I do think calling this novel The Lincoln Highway is a bit misleading. I thought it was going to be a road trip/buddy story that took the reader on the actual Lincoln Highway where I assumed we would visit plenty of small towns on the journey, meet interesting and quirky people and get to the final destination in a big, grand finale kind of way. That’s not what happens. It is a journey, but more about boys becoming men and trying to find their place in a post-world society in 1954. The Lincoln Highway does make an appearance, but two of our main characters don’t even get to really travel on it. Catchy title but not exactly accurate to the story.
We meet eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson as he arrives home to Nebraska from a juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His father has passed away and his mother left the family and with the family farm recently foreclosed by the bank, Emmett decides that he needs to take his eight-year-old brother Billy to another state where they can begin a new life. However, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car who drove him home. In a turn of events, they all begin a fateful journey to New York.
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Style of Writing and Structure
The story is told from the third-hand perspectives of Emmett; his brother Billy; Woolly, one of the friends who escaped the work farm and several other characters. But we read the first-person perspectives of Duchess, the other friend who escaped the work farm and Sally, one of Emmett’s friends from Nebraska. It’s interesting that the author Amor Towles decided to shift perspectives like that. I have a theory of why he did that but it’s a bit of a spoiler, so I will save it for my let’s talk about the ending article.
It did help having so many characters lend their true perspectives, especially as actions are sometimes different from their thoughts. There’s also some unreliable narration going on as well. Although, I will say, Emmett is clearly our protagonist where Duchess is something else… to be honest, I wasn’t a fan of Duchess the moment he arrived and I didn’t love reading his perspective. I did not find him charming or misunderstood but more of a nuisance and with him having such a big role, that is one reason I did not love this novel.
That said, I do think the novel could have been trimmed—almost 600 pages is quite long. And there were areas I felt dragged and I started to lose interest. I’m not sure why they thought the longer the better as I think a more tighter story would have been stronger.
The tone of the novel is mostly in line with Towles’ signature style—warmhearted, big and epic storytelling. However, the last 60 or so pages really came out of left field for me. When I finished it, my husband asked me what I thought, and I couldn’t even put my thoughts into words. I had to read it again to fully understand it.
Final Thoughts
All in all, The Lincoln Highway is an ambitious novel that takes on big themes and ideas, but it may not be for everyone. It’s a journey that takes you through the complicated and often confusing journey of adulthood, but it might feel a bit too long and may leave you a bit confused at the end. I recommend it to those who enjoy stories that are more of a journey than a destination, and are looking for a novel that will make them think and reflect.
I hope you enjoyed my The Lincoln Highway book review! And as always, I wish you happy reading! ❤️