Book Review: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

Book review of The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles

 

If you want to study how to make memorable characters, take a read of The Lincoln Highway. The three main characters are all young men recently out of juvie prison, each one absolutely distinct. Duchess is particularly delicious to read and, probably because he’s the most complex, his voice is in first person. Its fascinating as we are brought along through his peculiar rationale, half fooling the world and half fooling himself. Emmet is the two-by-four Nebraska hand who, with single-minded loyalty and a limited imagination, seems like he’ll be the driver of the novel but, turns out, it ain’t him. Wooly, the differently-minded blueblood innocent, is the most unique of all; just inhabiting his mind and following its logic seems so natural that it’s as much of a surprise to the reader as it is to him when the world crashes in.

The plot was great, the settings well-staged, the details of 1954 America believable at least to someone like myself who didn’t live through it. The secondary characters are great too, and each one serves the story. My only mild complaint is a diversion to a certain tall building about a certain book author—if you read the book, you’ll know what I mean, and maybe agree.

I’ve never read this author before, but now have a note to get ahold of his critically-acclaimed A Gentleman in Moscow, which, if of the same caliber, I’m sure to enjoy equally.

Eliot Jordan

 

Book review:

Title: The Lincoln Highway

Author: Amor Towles

Copyright: 2021

Pages: 576

ISBN: 978-0-7352-2235-9

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