I was thrilled to hit the road with this determined crew. In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the. And I loved this quest’s opening promise: Four boys with places to be standing in a barn, sliding the tarp off of Emmett’s sole possession, a baby blue Studebaker, the dusty roads calling like a treasure map. Buy a cheap copy of The Lincoln Highway book by Amor Towles. I loved the landscape, the rich tapestry of mid-century Americana, prairies and cities. When two other characters enter the story-acquaintances from Emmett’s recent past named Woolly and Duchess-a third path opens. Billy has a plan too, a journey mapped by a mysterious series of postcards laid in a line on the kitchen table. Emmett has big reasons to leave the state, and a plan. The two boys are alone, but have each other. The Lincoln Highway begins with eighteen-year-old Emmett, recently returned from juvenile detention in 1954, reuniting with his little brother, Billy, on their foreclosed Nebraska farm. I can’t remember the last time I cared more about the heroes of a book so thoroughly and quickly. When I opened the first pages of Amor Towles’s newest novel, The Lincoln Highway, I had a feeling I was in for just this kind of experience-bighearted and hopeful, perilous and enlightening. The stakes are even higher when the underdogs are kids or teens-adventures like This Tender Land, classics like Huckleberry Finn. Give me a group of underdogs with a sea or continent to cross, the promise of treasure and an arduous road, and I’m all in.
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