The Lincoln Highway

Three distinguished narrators tell this cross-country adventure tale by the celebrated author Amor Towles. Billy Watson, a precocious 8-year-old, portrayed by Edoardo Ballerini, dreams of traveling to California on America's first transcontinental roadway, the Lincoln Highway. After his brother is released from reform school, they hit the road, but life takes more turns than any roadway ever could, and the two Nebraska farm boys begin a series of adventures involving sundry characters, each with a distinctive, well-executed voice. Award-winning narrators Dion Graham and Marin Ireland also bring to life the assorted figures who make an impact in this story. This picaresque novel drags at times but immerses the listener in a uniquely moving world. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

This novel isn’t just a nod to Huckleberry Finn – it’s a warm and loving embrace. Huck travelled on the Mississippi, while this mid-century adventure proposes driving a Studebaker across America on the Lincoln Highway, from NYC to San Fran. After being released from juvenile detention, Emmett Watson returns to the family farm in Nebraska. His father has died and he and his younger brother, Billy, need to start over somewhere else. They decide to try to find their mother in California … but no adventure is complete without obstacles. Two friends from juvie, Duchess and Woolly, stowed away in the car which drove Emmett home. The latter comes from old money – a lot of which is waiting for him in upstate New York. They all begin the journey west, but Duchess ‘borrows’ Emmett’s car to take Woolly home, so Emmett and Billy head east to NYC to retrieve the car. Duchess has also pocketed Emmett’s money, so now they’re forced to ‘hitch’ on the railroad. Encounters with characters such as Ulysses, Billy’s friend and protector; Professor Abernathe, the writer of Billy’s favourite adventure book and another juvie friend, Townhouse, add to the adventure. Characterisations are superb: all have gigantic personalities without becoming caricatures. The brothers are smart but have much to learn. Emmetts’ lessons spring mainly from his no-nonsense neighbour, Sally. Duchess is charismatically generous … with Emmett’s possessions. Woolly is kind and naive (woolly-headed, naturally). All have complicated backstories. Together they form a tight-knit ensemble cast which sets this adventure on its unruly, emotion-filled course. There are many points of intersection between this narrative and Huck’s and, just like Twain, Towles is a spellbinding storyteller.  Reviewed by Bob Moore   ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born and raised in the Boston area, Amor Towles graduated from Yale College and received an MA in English from Stanford University. Having worked as an investment professional for over twenty years, he now devotes himself full time to writing in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and two children. His novels Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway have collectively sold more than six million copies and been translated into more than thirty languages. Both Bill Gates and President Barack Obama included A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway on their annual book recommendation lists. Rules of Civility (2011) was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books of the year. The book’s French translation received the 2012 Prix Fitzgerald. A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) was on the New York Times bestseller list for two years and was named one of the best books of 2016 by the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR. The Lincoln Highway (2021) debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Towles’s short stories have appeared in the Paris Review (#112), Granta (#148), British Vogue, and Audible Originals. Access to some of these stories as well as a few short essays can be found in the Other Writing section of this website. Visit Amor Towles website

“I guess you haven’t had your adventure yet,” 18-year-old Emmett Watson tells his 8-year-old brother, Billy, who responds, “I think we’re on it now.” And indeed they are, having set out in Emmett’s powder-blue 1948 Studebaker Land Cruiser, planning to head west on the Lincoln Highway, America’s first transcontinental roadway. In light of their father’s recent death, their unlikely goal is to track down their mother—who abandoned them years ago—at a July 4th celebration in San Francisco.  After mesmerizing legions of readers with the story of Count Alexander Rostov, sentenced in 1922 to spend the rest of his life in an attic room of a grand hotel in A Gentleman in Moscow (2016), Amor Towles takes to the open road in his superb, sprawling, cross-country saga, The Lincoln Highway. Although this great American road trip is quite a change of pace and scenery, Towles continues to transport readers, immersing them just as completely in the adventures of the Watson brothers he did in the seemingly claustrophobic lives of Count Rostov and his young sidekick, Nina.  Like Nina, young Billy is a creative, intelligent and essential companion to his older brother, and like Rostov, Emmett has had his own brush with the law. As the novel opens in June 1954, Emmett has just been released from an 18-month sentence in a juvenile work camp, having landed on “the ugly side of luck” in a manslaughter case involving a teenage bully. Soon after the Watson brothers start their quest, however, their grand plans are upended by two friends of Emmett’s from the work camp, Duchess and Woolly, who “borrow” the Studebaker and head to New York—forcing Emmett and Billy to stow away on a freight train and head east in hot pursuit. Packed with drama, The Lincoln Highway takes place in just 10 days, with chapters narrated by a variety of characters. Towles’ fans will be rewarded with many of the same pleasures they’ve come to expect from him: a multitude of stories told at a leisurely pace (the novel clocks in at 592 pages); numerous endearing and sometimes maddening characters; and pitch-perfect plotting with surprises at every turn. As if that weren’t enough, the novel is chock-full of literary references: a Ralph Waldo Emerson quotation that sets the brothers off on their journey; allusions to The Three Musketeers (Emmett, Duchess and Woolly); a memorable Black World War II veteran named Ulysses; and scenes reminiscent of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Ultimately, The Lincoln Highway is Towles’ unabashed love letter to books and storytelling.  Late in the novel, a character tells Billy, “There are few things more beautiful to an author’s eye . . . than a well-read copy of one of his books.” Towles has created another winning novel whose pages are destined to be turned—and occasionally tattered—by gratified readers.

Filled with humor, misadventures, triumphs and sorrow, Amor Towles’ novel The Lincoln Highway (16.5 hours) follows Emmet Watson, his kid brother, Billy, and their friends Duchess and Woolly on an epic road trip from Nebraska to New York. Each chapter is told from a different point of view, and Edoardo Ballerini narrates as all but two of the characters. He brings nuance to each voice, but his reading of Billy’s perspective is especially convincing. Billy, the precocious child who inspires much of the novel’s action, runs the risk of becoming more symbol than character, but Ballerini captures the wistfulness and vulnerability of a young boy far from home. Marin Ireland is gloriously brassy and brittle as Sally, a sassy Penelope figure who refuses to stay home, and Dion Graham imbues Ulysses, a homeless African American veteran doomed to crisscross America, with weary dignity and courage. Sometimes, audiobooks merely narrate the original text. In this case, the performances by Ballerini, Ireland and Graham augment it, giving The Lincoln Highway increased complexity and humanity. Read our starred review of the print edition of ‘The Lincoln Highway.’