The Lincoln Highway: A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)

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!

So this was a pick from my wife’s book club and, at first, I wasn’t going to read it. The story sounded like an imitation of “classic” American literature full of Americana and “rah-rah” the good old days of the fifties (side-stepping the rampant racism, sexism, and homophobia). Even the back matter invokes “Of Mice and Men” and “The Grapes of Wrath“. In the sample, the guy doesn’t use quote marks. All dialogue is denoted by a new paragraph and an emdash. What’s the matter Towles? Too good for proper punctuation? It’s not even satire like Billy Flynn’s Long Halftime Walk. But despite all that, I kinda liked it. And I got the bug to keep reading.It is full of Americana, but not the stuff you’d expect. Tangents account for things like radio commercials, riding the rails, cars, immigrant-owned Italian restaurants. Lots of asides through rose-colored glasses. And it is very male-oriented. There’s one female character and her chapters feel shoved in so that it doesn’t get dinged by critics for failing the Bechdel test. Well, guess what, I’m going to ding you anyway. *Ding*But you know what? It is a gosh-darned good story. It’s not ground-breaking and the guy does sound like he was trying to combine Steinbeck with the Odyssey. But it’s also about confronting the elements of the past and the flaws in your personality. The two main characters are good at demonstrating that theme. And I think it’s okay to read a book like this if you keep in mind that you’re only seeing the good parts of this history. If you don’t get suckered into the hype, I recommend letting go and enjoying it.

’...for most people, it doesn’t matter where they live. When they get up in the morning, they’re not looking to change the world. They want to have a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, put in their eight hours, and wrap up the day with a bottle of beer in front of the TV set. More of less, it’s what they’d be doing whether they lived in Atlanta, Georgia, or Nome, Alaska. And if it doesn’t matter for most people where they live, it certainly doesn’t matter where they’re going.''That’s what gave the Lincoln Highway its charm.''When you see the highway on a map, it looks like that Fisher guy Billy was talking about took a ruler and drew a line straight across the country, mountains and rivers be damned. In so doing, he must have imagined it would provide a timely conduit for the movement of goods and ideas from sea to shining sea, in a final fulfillment of manifest destiny. But everyone we passed just seemed to have a satisfied sense of their own lack of purpose.Let the road rise up to meet you, say the Irish, and that’s what was happening to the intrepid travelers on the Lincoln Highway. It was rising up to meet each and every one of them, whether they were headed east, headed west, or going around in circles.’The Lincoln Highway reads like one of those long Sunday drives wandering here and there without a specific destination in mind, wandering to and fro... Until, that is, all the back roads it follows lead to one road which was your fate. Like The Long and Winding Road which leads to your door, the place where you end up even when it wasn’t your destination, but more like your destiny. It floats along, and we’re glad to be a part of the journey, even if we are only silently observing these characters, and the journeys - both physical and emotional - they are on. It has the adventure of Tom Sawyer, and the charm, as well as the relative innocence associated with the era which makes for a delicious combination. A sense of an almost magical journey that offers a wistfulness that gives a nod to that There’s no place like home essence of Dorothy’s journey, including the flying monkeys, with the wicked witch replaced by other nefarious characters in search of this story’s version of the ruby slippers, with the charm of Dorothy’s crew of the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and the Tin Man being found in the characters in the journey of The Lincoln Highway. Courage, heart and brains make up the ingredients for the magical spell this casts. Throw in a sprinkling of a few Marx brothers type moments for some laughs, as well.What made this seem both charming and believable was the sense of love, forgiveness and a hopeful confidence that the journey they embark on will come true, that sense of hope is at the heart of it all. A sense of believing in all those seemingly trite sayings that still seem to hold a ring of truth. Most of the characters in this, and there are many, seem imbued with that old school confidence and quirky charm, although there are exceptions. In order to appreciate the goodness of life, and protect it, we have to remember that there are others who would steal it, given the chance.'A tale not from a leather bound tome, mind you. Not from an epic poem written in an unspoken language. Not from an archive or athenaeum. But from life itself.''How easily we forget---we in the business of storytelling---that life was the point all along. A mother who has vanished, a father who has failed, a brother who is determined. A journey from the prairies into the city by means of a boxcar with a vagabond named Ulysses. Then to a railroad track suspended over the city as surely as Valhalla is suspended in the clouds.'

Un par de cosas :- Recomendar a quien lo vaya a leer, que se lea antes "Rules of Civility" porque en este nuevo hay recuerdos del anterior , y se disfruta aún más habiendo leído el Rules...- Decir que los tengo todos en mi Kindle, y los quiero en papel, en buena edición, que me han encantado los tres, y quiero que los hereden los míos pero queNo he conseguido saber si la edición era inglesa o americana. Y que siempre encargo ediciones americanas de mis libros favoritos, porque el papel es mucho mejor, y está cosido en cuadernillos, y uno sabe que esos libros van a durar, y a durar... Pero que los dos que me han llegado de momento, no tienen más remedio que ser ediciones inglesas , por el tipo de letra, por el papel de peor calidad y pegado hoja por hoja, en vez de cosido en cuadernillos...Buscaré, y buscaré, a ver si tengo suerte y encuentro los volúmenes en edición americana.Me ocurrió algo parecido con los Harry Potter, que regalé mis ediciones inglesas en cuanto empezaron a salir las americanas. O con Klara and The Sun de Ishiguro.Manías de vieja, probablemente

Me ha gustado todo, de principio a fin. Recomendable para personas con sensibilidad. El final, sorprendente, fantástico, y muy inteligente.

Otro éxito de Amor Towles, personajes maravillosos, preciosa historia. Lo peor es la tristeza de acabar de leerlo y tener que separarte de los personajes….

Excelente libro ☺️Lo recomiendo.

Too many characters. Too much back story.