This book is clearly among the best fiction ones that I’ve read! I was almost tempted to skip this review because I’m sure it cannot do justice to the beauty of this book.
It covers ten days of a road trip undertaken by four boys — Emmett Watson, Billy Watson, Daniel (Duchess) Hewitt and Wallace (Woolly) Walcott — from Nebraska to New York along the Lincoln Highway. The Watson brother eventually want to end in California on the same highway in search of a new life and a mother who abandoned them. The other two are heading out to retrieve Woolly’s inheritance in New York. Emmett is the serious one with a high sense of integrity but is doomed to cause unintended adverse consequences by his actions. Billy is young, precocious, filled with wonder at each of life’s experiences and mature beyond his eight years. Duchess “loves it when life pulls a rabbit out of a hat” as he puts it. His sense of morality varies as per his convenience but a fractured relationship with his father eventually spirals it downwards . Woolly is a free-spirited but a lost soul, addicted to some form of drugs but possibly the most perceptive of the four. Each character is etched so beautifully that you can’t but help root for them, even for the grey Duchess. For me, my favourite was Woolly!
One of the best features of Towles’ writing is his ability to flesh out even the minor characters and have them play an important part in taking the story forward. We saw this in Towles’ previous book, A Gentleman in Moscow, and this book has even more minor players, complex and nuanced, scattered around the book. For me, one of the best passages in the book was the interaction between Ulysses, a vagabond in search of his family, and Professor Abernathe, the author of a book of adventures that Billy has read 25 times, despite both of them playing fairly minor roles in the book.
Like in his previous book, Towles’ writing is excellent — it’s easy to read but at the same time etches each actor’s thoughts beautifully. And to enable this, he’s chosen a structure where the narration alternates among the points of view of the various characters. He has also numbered his sections in reverse order (one section for each day) to give us a sense of countdown towards the inexorable determination of each of the boy’s futures. The only downside to his writing is perhaps the unnaturally high level of sophistication that he awards to the actors — which eight-year boy (Billy) thinks so maturely or which young adult (Duchess) is able to do the things he does given his messed-up upbringing! It almost makes the reader feel inadequate!!
Fun fact: The Lincoln Highway ends around the same date as A Gentleman in Moscow (summer of 1954 with June 21 playing an important role)
Pros: Superbly written, brilliant characters, an enjoyable re-read
Cons: Overly sophisticated characters perhaps
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