Our June selection is The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, renowned author of the award-winning novels A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility.
The Lincoln Highway was Amazon’s pick for The Best Book of 2021, described as “a compassionate, hopeful, and compulsively readable tale full of wonderfully flawed characters trying to do the right thing in all the wrong ways.” The story, set in 1954, follows four young men who set out to travel the country in search of a fresh start, each trying to escape a troubled past that is never far behind. The novel spans just 10 days, as alternating characters describe the unexpected adventures they encounter on their remarkable road trip.
“Captivating . . . The Lincoln Highway has suspense, humor, philosophy, and a strong sense of time and place, moving quickly and surely toward a satisfying conclusion . . . Like the intercontinental route that it is named for, The Lincoln Highway is long and filled with intriguing detours. In the hands of a master wordsmith like Towles, it is definitely worth the trip.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Welcome to the enormous pleasure that is The Lincoln Highway, a big book of camaraderie and adventure in which the miles fly by and the pages turn fast. Set over the course of ten riveting days, the story of these four boys unfolds, refolds, tears, and is taped back together. When you aren’t actually reading the book, you’ll be worrying about the characters, so you might as well stay in your chair and keep reading.” —Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
My book is off the waitlist and I have until 7/1 to pick it up and 3 weeks to read it before it’s due to be returned. I better move along on reading my “Drunk Tank Pink.” I’m 1/2 done.
Yay—will be picking up and starting “Lincoln Highway,” this week. “Drunk Tank Pink,” was interesting in a Freakonomics type of way. Provided food for thought about how we are affected by colors and surroundings.
Ok. I have Lincoln Highway on my coffee table. It looks pretty new and feels pretty substantial at 576 pages. I hope I can read it all before it’s due back at the library in 3 weeks.
The librarian was interested in my endorsement of “Drunk TankPink,” likening it to Freakonomics.
In our library system if the library where you’re requesting the book at has a copy, your request gets toward the front of the line. If you are requesting a book the library you want it sent to doesn’t have, you remain at the back of the line.
We are in good company, as the Phi Beta Kappa Society includes The Lincoln Highway on its summer reading list. (Cloud Cuckoo Land is on there, too.) Great minds think alike, eh?
I finished the ebook a while back and just picked up the hard copy from the library. I don’t know if I will re-read but at least am prepared to look stuff up for the discussion!
I finished it this morning. I liked it much better the second time around. Nevertheless, I need all of you smart people to explicate all the analogies from the real story to the classic stuff that was in Abernathe’s book.
It’s August 1st! Welcome to our discussion of The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.
I had a lot of feelings about this book — I can’t quite decide which way I lean! On the one hand, Amor Towles can write a good story. I breezed through the book and enjoyed the (tall) tale. On the other hand, I thought the novel was a bit of a stew with ingredients that didn’t quite complement each other. For example, we have the absolutely fanciful interlude of Billy finding Professor Abernathe in the Empire State Building and the Professor deciding to abandon his sedentary life and ride the rails with Ulysses. Utterly silly, but delightful in its way. And then we have the tragedy of Woolly’s suicide (which I didn’t even think was in character, but more on that later).
Also, I couldn’t stand Duchess from the get-go. Towles may have been trying to write him as dangerously charming, but to me he was just baaaaad news. I wanted less Duchess and more Sally. I thought there was potential for a good story arc there (and a much-needed female character), but her story was under-developed. As for little Billy…he just drives home the point I’ve made before that it is very difficult for a grown person—even a gifted author-- to accurately write the dialogue and behavior of a child. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Towles wasn’t even aiming to create a “real” child; Billy is more of a sprite, sprinkling fairy dust on the other characters.
This is a book that I just couldn’t get into at all. I gave up about 30% of the way through. Just didn’t connect with any of the characters, and felt like it was just one bad decision after the other. Hopefully I’ll enjoy the next book club selection more ; )
How do you think Emmett, Duchess, Woolly, and Sally’s various upbringings—particularly their relationships to their parents—have shaped them? How have their parents’ choices influenced their own desires and ambitions? When you were eighteen, which aspects of your parents’ lives did you hope to emulate, and which did you hope to cast aside?
Early in the novel, Emmett meets Sister Agnes, a nun who describes the faith of children, who look upon a miracle “with awe and wonder, yes, but without disbelief.” From the context, it’s fairly clear that Sister Agnes is referencing Billy in her remark. How would you describe Billy’s personality? While he is the youngest and least experienced character in the novel, one could argue that he has the greatest influence on other characters. What is it about Billy that makes this so?
Throughout the novel, an array of stories are recalled—stories drawn from Professor Abernathe’s Compendium, from the Vaudevillian world of Duchess’s father, from Shakespeare, cinema, and the Bible. What role do stories play in the shaping of the different characters’ lives and personalities? Are these stories a productive or counterproductive force? What story—whether handed down to you from your parents or experienced in a novel or film—had a particularly strong influence on shaping you as a young person?
The novel takes places in the mid-1950s—a period of peace, prosperity, and upward mobility in the US; a period in which television was in its infancy, and which came just before the advents of rock & roll, the modern civil rights movement, and the “sexual revolution”. How does the era shape the journeys of the characters, if at all? What aspect of their journeys are unique to their times, and what aspects were shared by you when you were on the verge of adulthood?
Hilary—an old friend and member of my book group—observed to me in passing, Well, of course, money is one of the central themes of your book. It’s on the minds of all the characters. This hadn’t occurred to me for one second! Do you think Hilary is right? On a related note, discuss the broader themes in the novel of moral accounting: of debt and recompense, transgression and atonement, sin and redemption.
The City of New York is a thousand cities rolled into one. How does New York differ in the eyes of Emmett, Duchess, Woolly, and Billy?
One of the pleasures of writing fiction is discovering upon completion of a project that some thread of imagery has run through the work without your complete awareness–forming, in essence, an unintentional motif. While I was very conscious of the recurrence of Maps & Floorplans in the book, and Photographs, here are a few motifs that I only recognized after the fact: Timepieces such as Billy’s surplus watch, the two grandfather clocks, Marceline’s pocket watch, and Wallace’s officer’s watch; Tables, Desks, & Chairs such as the furniture in the doll case at FAO Schwarz, the long table in the dining room at the camp, and the desks of “Dennis” and Professor Abernathe; Cases such as the wicker picnic basket, Woolly’s cigar box, Harry Hewett’s Othello case, and the shoebox of preserves. What role do any of these motifs play in the thematic composition of the book? And if you see me in an airport, can you explain them to me?
The tone of each character’s chapters differs from the tone of the other characters’ chapters. How would you describe the style of the different characters’ chapters? To what degree does the style shape your sense of the characters’ personalities? How does reading Duchess’s first person narrative influence you in comparison to Emmett’s third person narrative?
Emmett’s father leaves Emmett a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” as part of his legacy. Do you agree with Emerson’s argument that what is within the individual is new to nature, and that we have no idea of what we can achieve until we’ve tried? What about Emerson’s idea strikes you as particularly American? What about this novel strikes you as particularly American? What does self-reliance mean to Emmett, to Duchess, and to Sally?
There are a number of smaller legacies in the novel. In addition to the Emerson quotation left to Emmett, there are the recipes handed down to Sally, the officer’s watch handed down in the Wolcott family, the St. Christopher medal passed from Billy to Ulysses. What role do these small legacies play within the larger themes of the novel? What smaller legacy have you received that has meant a great deal to you?
How would you describe each main character’s transformation over the course of the novel? Which character do you think evolves most significantly? Which characters, in your opinion, found what they were looking for? Do you have a favorite character, and why them?
A question for those of you who have read my other books: While Rules of Civility covers a year in Katey’s life, and A Gentleman in Moscow spans three decades, The Lincoln Highway takes place over just ten days. How does the span of time effect the narrative and your experience of it? What are the benefits and limitations that come with reading a novel spanning days rather than years? While A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway differ in duration, the ending of the two books match each other in a very specific way. What is this commonality? And what are its implications when considering the two stories side by side?
Woolly’s sister, Sarah, observes to Emmett: “If you take a trait that by all appearances is a merit—a trait that is praised by pastors and poets, a trait that we have come to admire in our friends and hope to foster in our children—and you give it to some poor soul in abundance, it will almost certainly prove an obstacle to their happiness.” Do you think this is true? What virtue do you think each of the main characters possesses in excess?
Given inflation, $50,000 in 1954 would be the equivalent of about $500,000 today. Late in your discussion, after you’ve had the chance to share a bottle of wine or a few cocktails, tell each other what you would do if you were suddenly given half a million dollars.
I could have written your entire post @Mary13. I really enjoyed reading the book, but when I got to the end and thought about it there were so many things that annoyed me about it.
No question Amor Towles can write, but there was something off about this story. I never felt really invested in the characters and the more I read, the more they irritated me. The loopy story structure of flashback after flashback each time with a new narrator also got tiresome. But there’s some great stuff here, it’s all very quotable, great observations, some fun side characters. Hated the ending.
I’m sure there’s a great analysis connecting the stories in Billy’s book with the events of the novel, but it’ll have to come from someone else.
That rowboat scene stayed with me for a long time, and if that’s what happens when Emmett counts to ten, maybe it would be better if he didn’t.
Billy was too good to be true. The character reminded me of the little girl in the book we read a while back about the kids travelling down a river (can’t remember the name!) - the unchildlike child.
There were echos of prior book club books for me in this book. I really disliked Duchess thoroughly. Yes, his dad treated him abysmally but he was awful to others as well and so violent.
I’m sad that Woolly died. He seemed like a good person. From the timing,I believe Duchess could have called for help to save him but chose not to.
Duchess dying in the leaky lifeboat was something I was pretty unhappy with, but I guess it made sense in some ways in terms of not having Duchess immediately haring after them. Duchess left many in peril time and again.
Billy was too unnaturally precocious for his young age.
Took the words right out of my mouth! I was worried that I wasn’t literary enough to appreciate the book. (I did like the writing and have Gentleman in Moscow on hold since that’s supposed to be a better book.)
The story was not at all what I expected. I thought it would be a road trip story - and it was to some extent - but barely on the Lincoln Highway itself. I wanted to see them go cross country and end up in California - not wandering the freight yards of New York. I gather the Lincoln Highway must be a metaphor?
Disliked Duchess and very much disliked his control over Emmett and Wooley. Disliked all the coincidental meetups of various characters. The ending seemed harsh, however well deserved. I read the ebook and later got the hard copy but have no desire to read it again.
