![]() ![]() At the center of the story are 18-year-old Emmett Watson and his young brother, Billy, who plan to drive to California in search of a new life after their father’s death and Emmett’s early release from juvenile detention. The story is told from various points of view, using both first and third person. It all made me wish I knew my Greek mythology better, because while I liked most of Towles’s book (more on that in a minute), I wasn’t always sure what it was trying to do. In fact, there was something of a resemblance to the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, famously based on the same epic. And he scatters references to Greek mythology throughout the book. Towles has rooted his story in Homer’s epic, going so far as to create a supporting character who’s a wandering ex-soldier named Ulysses. ![]() But that’s just what he’s given us in The Lincoln Highway. ![]() Amor Towles is a good example-if you read The Rules of Civility and/or A Gentleman in Moscow, you probably didn’t expect his next novel to be all about a madcap odyssey across America by a ragtag bunch fresh out of juvenile detention in Kansas (including a couple who aren’t supposed to be out yet). ![]() Just when you’ve gotten used to their work on a particular subject or in a particular genre, they shatter all expectations by doing something entirely different. I appreciate authors who can’t be pigeonholed. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (Viking, 2021) ![]()
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