The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles was my husband's book club book for last month. I started reading it because I finished the book I had been reading and was too lazy to go into the other room to get another one of my library books, so I decided it would be easier to just read this 500+ page novel? I don't understand myself sometimes, either.  I'm really I glad I did read it, though, because when my husband and I were driving for our Labor Day weekend event, we were able to talk about it a lot. I think this would be a great book club book. 

Emmett has just been released from a juvenile justice facility because his father has died and he's now the guardian of his younger brother Billy. They're going to lose the house and so they decide to try and find their mother, who they suspect lives in California. But before they can leave, two of Emmett's friends from the juvenile justice facility had escaped in the car that took Emmett home and now there are four. We follow these four from Nebraska to New York City and all the adventures that follow.

I enjoyed the writing and think it's fodder for a lot of discussion about character motivations and the purpose of the introduction of many side characters. I think this is a master class in unreliable narration and clue dropping. I think it's sort of a humorous style of writing, although I can't really tell if it was intended to be so. I imagine I'll be thinking about this book for quite some time to come.

That being said, this book didn't entirely land with me, particularly the ending. There are a lot of loose ends. One of the characters behaves in a way he absolutely wouldn't have throughout the rest of the book. I'm starting to get bitter about these novels that promise a lot and don't deliver! 3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

To Emmett, all the houses in this part of the country looked like they'd been dropped from the sky. The Watson house just looked like it'd had a rougher landing. (page 3)

I thought this was a great way of describing a certain ramshackle farming community. It drew me into the writing right away.

In his seventeen years, he was the engineer of a lifetime of shit piles. (page 15)

This made me laugh out loud.

But for most people, it doesn't matter where they live. When they get up in the morning, they're not looking to change the world. They want to have a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, put in their eight hours, and wrap up the day with a bottle of beer in front of the TV set. More or less, it's what they'd be doing whether they lived in Atlanta, Georgia or Nome, Alaska. And if it doesn't matter for most people where they live, it certainly doesn't matter where they're going. (page 133)

Do you think this is true? Do you think most of us would have our same lives no matter where we lived?

-Well, that's life in a nutshell, ain't it. Lovin' to go one place and havin' to go to another. (page 151)

This is an interesting juxtaposition with the previous quote.

Because young children don't know how things are supposed to be done, they will come to imagine that the habits of their household are the habits of the world. If a child grows up in a family where angry words are exchanged over supper, he will assume that angry words are exchanged at every kitchen table; while if a child grows up in a family where no words are exchanged over supper at all, he will assume that all families eat in silence.  (page 169-170)

This is so true, isn't it? Parents are our first, most important, teachers.

Because it's the man who makes the fedora, not versa vice. I mean, wouldn't you rather wear the hat worn by Frank Sinatra than the one worn by Sergeant Joe Friday? (page 369)

A few things about this passage. 1) Hat! 2) Versa vice? Have you ever heard it said that way? 3) I think I'd rather have a well-meaning police officer's hat than a mobster's, to be quite honest. 

-There are few things more beautiful to an author's eye, he confessed to Billy, than a well-read copy of one of his books.

Setting the book down, the professor took up his pen and opened to the title page.

-It was a gift, I see.

-From Miss Matthiessen, said Billy. She's the librarian at the Morgen Public Library.

-A gift from a librarian, no less, the professor said with added satisfaction. (page 409)

Libraries rule!

It's not a watch that's too precious to be given away. It's a watch that's too precious for keeping. It was handed down from my grandfather to my uncle who handed it down to me. now I am handing it down to you. And one day - many years from now - you can hand it down to someone else. (page 456)

I know a lot of you aren't the kind of people who necessarily have heirlooms from your family, but I thought this was a lovely sentiment. 

Things I looked up:

visigoth (page 29) - Germanic people who lived under the Roman Empire and were well-known for their skills in battle.

I'll give you a fin (page 251) - Fin is slang for a five-dollar bill. 

Civil Defense Test (page 267) - This happened in NYC In 1954. The FCDA pretended that a nuclear attack had hit the city and everyone had to get off the streets. 

gyre (page 335) - spiral or vortex (in this case, being used as a substitute word for tornado)

Hat mentions:

I counted 37 hat mentions in this book, which is an average of one hat per nineteen pages. That's a lot!  None were particularly notable.