#1 Best-Seller in the New York Times
More than ONE MILLION copies sold
A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick
A New York Times Notable Book, and Chosen by Oprah Daily, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Bill Gates and Barack Obama as a Best Book of the Year
"Wise and wildly entertaining . . . permeated with light, wit, youth." --Book Review of The New York Times
"A classic that we will read for years to come." --Hager, Jenna Bush Jenna's book club reads
"A real joyride . . . elegantly constructed and compulsively readable." — NPR
The creator of captivating, sophisticated fiction and the best-selling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility makes a triumphant comeback with a chic and captivating book set in 1950s America.
The warden of the juvenile labor farm, where Emmett Watson, then eighteen, had just completed his fifteen-month sentence for involuntary homicide, drives him home to Nebraska in June of 1954. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. Emmett finds two buddies from the labor farm hiding in the warden's car's trunk, however, after the warden drives off. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction--to the City of New York.
Fans of Towles's multilayered literary style will find plenty of fresh and beautifully conceived locales, people, and issues in this short (ten days) book written from several points of view. "Towles's writing once again amazed me, particularly considering how drastically The Lincoln Highway differs from A Gentleman in Moscow in terms of subjects, place, and storyline. Towles is not a one-trick pony. Like all the best storytellers, he has range. Famous hero's journeys such as The Odyssey, The Iliad, Hamlet, Huckleberry Finn, and Of Mice and Men serve as inspiration for him. He seems to be saying that our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as an interstate highway. But, he suggests, when something (or someone) tries to steer us off course, it is possible to take the wheel." - Microsoft