The Lincoln Highway (2021)

The Lincoln Highway is a 2021 novel by American author Amor Towles. Set in 1954, it tells the story of four young men on a roadtrip from Nebraska to New York City over ten days. Each chapter is written from the perspective of one of the characters.

Plot

Emmett Watson returns home to Morgen, Nebraska, after serving 18 months of a sentence at a work farm in Salina, Kansas. He is released early following his father's death and reunites with his younger brother, Billy. They are soon joined by Duchess and Woolly, two friends of Emmett's from Salina who stowed away in the warden's car.

Emmett runs into the brother of the boy he had accidentally killed. The brother punches him, but Emmett doesn't retaliate, hoping this will settle the matter. Later, Duchess violently assaults a boy who had egged on the attack.

Billy tells Emmett about the Lincoln Highway, which runs from Times Square in New York to San Francisco, where Billy believes their mother, who left the family years earlier, now lives. With their house facing foreclosure, the brothers decide to drive Billy's blue Studebaker to San Francisco, hoping to find their mother at an Independence Day fireworks show. They agree to drop Duchess and Woolly off in Omaha.

During a stop at Duchess' childhood foster home, Duchess and Woolly steal Emmett's car and head for New York, where Duchess has debts to settle and Woolly expects to claim a $150,000 trust at his family's upsate estate. Determined to recover the car, Emmett and Billy freighthop east, planning to retrieve it so they can drive to San Francisco. On the train they meet Ulysses, a man drifting through boxcars, longing to reunite with the wife and son who left him after he enlisted and served in World War II.

En route to New York, Duchess makes a detour to the home of former Salina warden Ackerly, and attacks him with a cast-iron pan. Once in New York City, he tracks down Townhouse, who was once beaten by that same warden, an incident Duchess blames himself for. Duchess asks Townhouse to hit him as a way of settling the debt; Townhouse punches him three times while Duchess offers no resistance.

Emmett and Billy arrive soon after. Drawing on stories Duchess once told about the talent agents who represented his father, a vaudeville actor known for Shakespearean roles, Emmett tracks the pair down at a Brooklyn circus. Duchess, delighted to see them, arranges for Emmett to visit a prostitute as a gesture of goodwill.

The group then seeks out Professor Abernathe, author of an epic-journey compendium that Billy is obsessed with. Abernathe is captivated by Billy's story and asks to meet Ulysses, who is also in New York.

Duchess and Woolly make their way to Woolly's family estate, where they locate the safe Woolly believes holds his inheritance. Without the combination, Duchess struggles for hours to force it open. When Emmett and Billy arrive, Billy quickly deduces the combination from stories Woolly had shared about his family. The vault is opened and found to contain the promised money. Soon after, Woolly is discovered dead in an upstairs bedroom having taken his own life.

Eager to start their journey to San Francisco, Emmett and Billy want to ensure Duchess doesn't follow. A fight breaks out between Emmett and Duchess, and the brothers leave him unconscious in a leaky rowboat on the lake. Unable to keep the boat afloat and unable to swim, Duchess drowns, his final thoughts drifting to an imagined Shakespearean performance, filled with love and respect for Emmett.

Characters

Emmett Watson

Emmett's perspective is told in the third person. Emmett was raised in Morgen, Nebraska, by his father after his mother left. At 15, he became a carpenter's assistant, purposely avoiding the hazardous weather-dependent nature of farming. After a local troublemaker, Jimmy Snyder, taunts him about his father, Emmett punches him and Jimmy later dies after hitting his head in the fall. Emmett admits his guilt at a court hearing, thereby avoiding a trial. Sent to Salina, a Kansas youth facility, for 18 months for manslaughter, Emmett is released early on compassionate grounds when his father passes away. Emmett owns a blue 1948 Studebaker Land Cruiser — his absolute pride and joy.

Billy Watson

Emmett's eight-year-old younger brother. Upon his father's death, he discovers a metal box containing postcards from their estranged mother. He wants to go to San Francisco, where he believes their mother may be living as it was the last place she sent a postcard from. He wants to go via the Lincoln Highway — a highway built in 1912 that runs across America from New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. Billy remembers his mother's love of fireworks and is convinced she will be at the Fourth of July fireworks in Lincoln Park. Billy collects silver dollar coins in an old blue tobacco tin with the portrait of George Washington on it. He carries around a book with him, “Abacus Abernathe's Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers and Other Intrepid Travellers” that he has read many times.

“When it came to rules, Billy wasn't simply an abider. He was a stickler.” (Emmett)