I really enjoyed the writing, and it moved very quickly with lots of clever turns of phrase. But overall…I agree with others on Billy–much too wise to be believable. I didn’t find any of the characters believable, actually. I could read the as a journey quest parable, but it seemed to be a mishmash of all the stories in Abernathy’s book, so it didn’t really work for me that way, either. It just felt messy, with too many parts to hang together properly. I felt the same way about A Gentleman in Moscow. And the women were insignificant and there just to keep the menfolk in line (or to abandon them): Sally, Sarah, Sister Agnes, Ma Belle & Charity.
Duchess could have been a sympathetic character, had he not been bopping everyone on the head with various implements. I got very tired of characters hitting other characters to end a scene!
I have precocious kids (as many of us do), but they were never quite like Billy. Emmett never seemed to learn and always as a few steps behind — good hearted enough but not a leader.
It definitely lacked having impactful female characters. It was just another male bonding journey with females thrown in to add “color,” I guess. That really wore on me.
I’m still struck by how much Dutchess’s father screwed him and how Dutchess alleges he doesn’t hold a grudge. I think a good therapist could have a field day with that.
I immediately thought of Scout too. Great minds … right.
I’d add Anne (with an e) of Green Gables. Jo of Little Women (and the sibling dynamics). Francie Nolan (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
It’s been a while but I vaguely remember thinking the author did a good job with Duchess Day Radley (We Begin at the End). And if I remember correctly Joe (The Round House)
This Tender Land didn’t work for me because of the children. It just didn’t ring true.
Billy so got under Duchess’ skin at times. I found myself agreeing with Duchess. A little Billy went a long way.
For what it’s worth, I think Towles did a better job with Sofia in A Gentleman in Moscow. Precocious, yes, but not obnoxiously so.
Duchess is clearly a mess. There are definitely kind and good aspects of his behavior (orphans, kind to Wooley at times, cooking dinner for everyone, talking to Sarah about not needing the pills, etc) but he’s definitely looking out for himself because his dad taught him time and again the folly and danger of trusting loyalty.
I’m not sure he could ever be fully rehabbed—had no interest in changing. It saddened me that he didn’t make a as my effort to save Wooley, whom he believed was still alive at that point and was solely focused on busting open the safe. It wasn’t clear he would have left anything for anyone else if he had managed to break it open. I guess rescuing Wooley would have forced an end to hopes of getting open the safe and getting the cash.
Ain’t that the truth! But on some days, I feel like it’s a twenty-year danger zone.
Yes, I wearied of that as well. Let’s see…Duchess hits the cowboy with a two-by-four and hits the warden with a frying pan; Pastor John hits Ulysses with a shovel and Ulysses hits Pastor John right back with the same shovel. Jake Snyder punches Emmett in the face; Townhouse punches Duchess in the face; Emmett punches Duchess in the face, etc.
Generally, I don’t mind violence in a novel if it’s an essential construction of the story – if it says something. The best example I can think of is The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley: The violence escalates as the main character’s life unravels; it’s in step with the story.
But the violence in The Lincoln Highway seemed mostly cartoonish. With the exception of the old warden, everybody kind of shakes it off and gets up again. In reality, there would be a fair number of fractured skulls and broken teeth.
Good depictions of kids? Atonement - Briony in Atonement not quite old enough to understand adult relationships Never Let Me Go - The kids are so amazingly boring and ordinary! The Warrior Apprentice - Miles is born with serious birth defects and has to make it up with his intellect and drive.
But really the best kids are in kids books. Any book by E. Nesbit, Ramona Quimby, Harriet the Spy.
This is kind of a gross thought, but I wonder how long it would be before Woolly’s body is discovered. The house is secluded on what is essentially a private lake – “With the trees coming right down to the shoreline, there wasn’t another residence in sight” (p. 484). Sarah thinks Woolly has run off to escape working for Dennis, and she’s also used to long spells of no contact with him. The police are looking for Duchess, but I don’t think they’re motivated enough to trek all the way out to the Adirondacks, presuming it even occurs to them to look there.
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?
Every one of them has either a troubled relationship with a parent or has been left behind due to death or abandonment. None have mothers – either they’ve died (Sally’s mom, Duchess’ mom) or are out of the picture (Emmett’s mom, Woolly’s mom).
Duchess’ father is horrible and Sally’s dad just seems to need her as a cook and housekeeper. I think Emmett is too hard on his father. Maybe he was a lousy farmer, but he seemed to love his sons (and his wife) and he raised them to be good people.
Re Emmett’s dad, though, I just gotta say if I had a nickel for every book or movie where a character hides letters, I’d be a gazillionaire. Everything from The Notebook to A Cinderella Story. It’s a trope.
Billy finds the postcards after their father’s death:
But what Emmett was feeling was the sting of resentment–resentment toward their father. He must have intercepted the cards and hidden them away (p. 21).
“Also, unfathomably, but usually necessary to the plot, the person who intercepted the letters has kept them, often for decades, instead of throwing them out, so we get a scene where the letters are finally delivered.”
Interesting point all the main characters mothers died or abandoned them. Wow, can Towles create a loving mother?
Do you think Emmett’s mother suffered from post partum depression? Didn’t she leave soon after Billy’s birth?
Towles tried to portray each character’s family as the root of their problems. It seemed too tidy,and nothing justified the sociopathic violence Duchess subjected the cowboy, the warden or Townhouse to in Harlem.
I felt little sympathy for Ulysses, who chose to leave his young family, even though his excuse was his patriotic duty, I thought he was selfish.
Were these accurate/ realistic portraits of 1950’s US family life ?
I actually had the reverse thought! I thought Ulysses’ wife was completely unreasonable to tell him that if he went to war, he would never see her or their child again. The pressure on able-bodied men to enlist during WW2 was very strong, and a black man especially would be judged harshly if he did not fight. I thought it was cruel of her to never write him a single letter, and disappear with their son. However, I do fault Ulysses for not searching for them. He just gave up. I wonder what version of events Macie gave their son — yet another child in the story (albeit “offscreen”) missing a parent.
Usually, when I read a book set in a different era, I take several detours to look up historical tidbits. The Lincoln Highway led me to some interesting sites. For example, when viewing The Empire State Building, Woolly muses, “It was the tallest building in the world. It was so tall, in fact, a plane had actually crashed into the top of it once” (p. 415).
How did I not know that? I looked up the story and found a very recent article in the NY Daily News:
I also looked up the 1948 powder blue Studebaker. If you’re wondering what Emmet’s car looked like (before the yellow paint job), there’s a photo from just about every angle in this article:
That is stunning to see! Who can look at those pictures and not think of 9/11, surprised we didn’t hear more about this during that time !
And isn’t this the stuff of nightmares …….shuttering ….from you link @Mary13 ….
“ Workmen begin the task of rebuilding a wall knocked out after the B-25 Mitchell bomber plane crashed into the building on July 28, 1945. Among those injured was elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver, who miraculously survived when the elevator she was in fell 75 stories when the cables snapped. The incident still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest surviving elevator fall. (Wally Seymour/New York Daily News)
I also looked up photos of Emmet’s car. Quite impressive and distinctive! And count me as another who had never heard of the plane crashing into the Empire State Building.
Agree with @Mary13 that Ulysses’ wife was the totally unreasonable one in that storyline. That said, I also didn’t understand why he wouldn’t start looking for Macie and their son as soon as he got back from the war.
As I read through everyone’s comments, I realize there are a lot of reasons NOT to like this book. The fact that I do is what? A comment on Towles’ skill as a writer? My not being a discerning reader? Both?
