Book Review: The Lincoln Highway

From The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles:

Amazon

"Billy went back to the front pocket of his backpack and took out something that looked like a pamphlet. When he unfolded it on the table, Emmett could see it was a road map of the United States from a Phillips 66. Cutting all the way across the middle of the map was a roadway that had been scored by Billy in black ink. In the western half of the country, the names of nine towns along the route had been circled.
—This is the Lincoln Highway, explained Billy, pointing to the long black line. It was invented in 1912 and was named for Abraham Lincoln and was the very first road to stretch from one end of America to the other."

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Book Review: The Lincoln Highway.

In 1954, a teen is released from a juvenile work farm in Nebraska upon the death of his father, a farmer deep in debt on a family farm foreclosed by the bank. His mother deserted the family years ago and fled to San Francisco. Emmett decided to flee the failing farm, too. His young brother, Billy, insists on them going to California to find their mother. He knows just the route to take: the Lincoln Highway, which stretches from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. It passes through Nebraska. So they gas up the old Studebaker and head west, until, as fate often has it, circumstances beyond their control blow them off course, so to speak, and they find themselves heading east towards New York City behind two other young men also just released from the same work farm.

The book is a quest, an adventure story, and a coming-of-age tale. Billy, the youngest traveler, is often the wisest. His wisdom comes from a book he's read twenty-five times, "Professor Abacus Abernathe’s Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers and Other Intrepid Travelers." It's full of stories about Ulysses, Achilles, Jason, and others. Billy sees his older brother as the hero in their adventure and himself as the Xenos, or stranger who assists the hero at crucial moments. "The Lincoln Highway" itself reads like Homer's Odyssey, where the unlucky travelers get blown way off course and have many adventures before reaching their desired destination. Overall, it's a fun read, maybe more suitable for younger readers than adults.

Grade: B-

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"The Lincoln Highway" is available from the Richardson Public Library. :-)