Sunday, October 31, 2021

The Lincoln Highway


 Book: The Lincoln Highway
Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: Amor Towles

Edition: epub on Libby from the San Francisco Library

Publisher: Viking

ISBN: 9780735222359 (ISBN10: 0735222355)

Start Date: October 11, 2021

Read Date: October 31, 2021

576 pages

Genre: Fiction

Language Warning: Low

Rated Overall: 3½ out of 5



Fiction-Tells a good story: 3 out of 5

Fiction-Character development: 5 out of 5


Synopsis:

here are two stories which intersect. The Watson brothers are trying to go to San Francisco to start a new life, one to find his mother, the other to escape his past. The other story centers on a rich, naive person who is convinced by a con man to get his estate money and share it.


When the two stories intersect is with the elder Watson being released from a Kansas reform school to his home in Nebraska and his buddies tagging along with him. The Watson brothers end up in New York trying to recover their car so they can go to California.


The story centers around a children’s book of 26 heroic figures and the imagination of the younger Watson brother. The theme of these stories play out over the book until the money is recovered and death occurs.



Cast of Characters:
  • Emmett Watson-Big brother who was in juvenile reform camp released early because of father’s death, trying to start a new life from Nebraska. I think he is 18. Abandoned by mother, father never made a decent living as a father
  • William (Billy) Watson-Eight year old brother who likes hero stories. From Nebraska
  • Duchess-Con man, lust of money. Meets Emmett and Wooly in reform school. Abandoned as a kid by a vaudeville actor father.
  • Woolly-naive, innocent rich kid. Meets Emmett and Duchess at reform school. From upstate New York. Father dies when he is young. Mother out of picture. Well taken care of.
  • Sally Ransom-Next door neighbor. Styles herself as having a love interest in Emmett
  • Townsend-Fellow reform school. From Bronx. He received a beating in excessive of reasonable. He did not rat on Duchess.
  • Sarah-Wooly’s sister, Dennis’ wife. Very sympathetic and empathetic with Woolly.
  • Dennis Whitney-Sarah’s husband
  • Ulysses - Black World War II veteran whose wife deserted him. He has been on a ten year quest, unknown to him. This gets put into perspective by Billy Watson
  • Preacher John-a self-styled preacher who will kill for money.
  • Professor Abacus Abernathe’-Author of a book which guides Billy
  • Patrick “Fritz” FritzWilliams-friend of Duchess’ Dad
  • Harry Hewitt-Duchess’ Dad

Expectations:
  • Recommendation: None
  • Date Became Aware of Book: October 8, 2021
  • How come do I want to read this book: Read another Towles book, A Gentleman in Moscow, and enjoyed it.
  • What do I think I will get out of it? At least a good read

Thoughts:

There are several thoughts which run throughout the book.

  • Place of the hero and what does a hero look like
  • death-you do not notice the number of people who die in the book, until the end
  • the curvature of a life
  • the evil all will do in a life
  • evening the score, both for the evil done and the good done to a person


Parts go in the reverse order, like a countdown. This is a trick of Towles. In A Gentleman in Moscow he did other “tricky” things with chapter headings. Also the title character of each chapter plays the clue about what perspective the chapter is from. Sometimes, it is narrated by the person, other times it is just told like a webcam on the person. The self-narration is usually Duchess and Sally, but not Bully or Emmet.


The whole story takes place in less than two weeks.




Part Ten


Emmett

Started on June 12, 1954. Emmett is released from reform school and taken by the director back home. He is told he should keep away from those who would lead him astray. He finds that both his neighbor and a banker are at the house. The banker says that he is foreclosing on the property and all which is on it. Emmett notes that the car is his, not his fathers. The neighbor advises him to go away and make a new start. Billy is all set to find his mother in San Francisco, by traveling the Lincoln Highway. The highway ends at Lincoln Park in San Francisco.


Duchess

Chapter told from Duchess point of view. Duchess and Woolly have stowed away in the car of the director and emerge from hiding. They want Emmett to go to New York with them to recover Woolly’s estate fortune. They will share the $150,000 equally. While Emmett is legitimately out, Duchess and Wooly are not. Emmett wants nothing to do with this scheme. Duchess invokes the motto of the Three Musketeers. Billy gives description of where Professor Abacus Abernathe’s office is


Duchess gives his background. Father was a traveling actor. He would go with his father until his father abandoned him. But this is a made up history.


Kazantikis-Magician in the book. Not a real person



Part Nine

Emmett

Told from a third person perspective. Emmett wakes up on the first morning in his house to find Sally has made breakfast. Emmett does not know how to react to Sally. Emmett goes into town to get some supplies and stuff-it is Sunday. Why are the stores open in a good town like this? Then he stops by the library. He was figuring out which had the most growth-Texas or California. Emmett wants to build houses so the more growth the more profit.


Emmett relives the night at the fairgrounds. How he was provoked into a fight. In doing so, the person got knocked back, hit his head and died.


The brother/friends of the person who was killed are waiting for him when he gets out of the library. They beat him up. He does not fight back. The Sheriff breaks it up. Sheriff gives him some advice, gets him taken care of and driven back to his home.


Danny Hoagland-Only reason I picked this name out was that there was a friend of mine with a similar name.


Duchess

Duchess goes into town-Emmett does not know. He observes Emmett’s beating. Duchess compares this to various movie actors who take beatings. The willingness to take a beating: That’s how you can tell you’re dealing with a man of substance.


Duchess ruminates on unfinished business. What wisdom the Lord does not see fit to endow us with at birth, He provides through the gift of experience How Emmett felt a need to balance the score with the family of the boy who died in the fight.


Duchess kills the guy who instigated the beating. (Turns out that he severely injured him.)


Just because it is an interesting sentence. This is thought by Dutchess right before he kills the guy. It’s the sort of reception that could turn you off charitable acts forever


Woolly

Told from Wooly’s point of view. Some more background on Woolly.


Sally

Told from Sally’s view. In church. She has it out for church because it is from a man’s point of view.


Time is that which God uses to separate the idle from the industrious. The author may have put this in here more because he liked the statement than it adds to the story. I like the quote as well.


For what is kindness but the performance of an act that is both beneficial to another and unrequired? Gets to the heart of Sally


Duchess

Recounts how Emmett told Billy about the fight. Duchess receives a mystery shoe box.



Part Eight

Emmett

The four of them start out for San Francisco. Emmett wants the fastest way; Billy wants to go by way of the Lincoln Highway. Billy wins. Talks about the background to the Lincoln Highway. The plan is to drop Duchess and Woolly off at the Omaha bus station and be on their way. Duchess wants to stop by his orphanage on the way there. They do.


Duchess leaves chaos as well as Emmett and Billy at the orphanage. He meets Sister Agnes.


Having been abandoned, he calls Sally for help. While waiting, it gives Sister Agnes a chance to talk with Emmett, particularly about Duchess. She gives a bit more of the Duchess' history.


Sister Agness talks about the parable of the Good Samaritan. She says: A good Christian shows compassion toward those who are in difficulty. And that is an important part of the parable’s meaning. But an equally important point that Jesus is making is that we do not always get to choose to whom we should show our charity


Sally leaves Emmett and Billy at the train station.


Duchess

After stealing Emmett’s car, Duchess and Woolly set out for New York. For most people, it does not matter where they are going. That’s what gave the Lincoln Highway its charm.


A bit more about Duchess’ background as they go on to New York.


Emmett

Emmett and Billy find they do not have any money after Sally lets them off in Omaha. They hop a freight train.


Billy points out they are on their own adventure-to get to San Francisco. I think here, Towles figures it is similar to Ulysses. I [Billy]am pretty sure that we are on our adventure, Emmett. But I won’t be able to make a start of setting it down until I know where the middle of it is


Duchess

Woolly and Duchess travel east. Woolly is fascinated by all of the things he had not experienced.


Emmett

Billy and Emmett jump a freight train.



Part Seven

Duchess

More Howard Johnson. Woolly takes the car for a spin.


Woolly

Woolly tries to map read while driving.Purpose: find the town’s statue of Lincoln. This brings back memories of being a failure to recite the Gettysburg Address. But this was an occasion where his whole family recited the speech: this was the way that Abraham Lincoln had meant his Address to be recited. Not as a little boy standing alone at the head of a table in an itchy coat, but as four generations of a family speaking together in unison.


Emmett

The train has come to a stop. Emmett looks for food. He comes across a car where there had been a party. Emmett was raised to hold no man in disdain. To hold another man in disdain, his father would say, presumed that you knew so much about his lot, so much about his intentions, about his actions both public and private that you could rank his character against your own without fear of misjudgment. But the two men in this car seemed to lack character and only had riches.


Pastor John

Introducing the minor character of Pastor John. He comes into the boxcar where Billy is waiting for Emmett. Pastor John hears the collection of coins and makes plans to steal it. Pastor John’s thought as he lusts after the coins: Not the God of Abraham, who would sooner strike down a sinner than call him by name, but the God of Christ. Or even Christ Himself, the One who assured us that no matter how often we have strayed, we can find forgiveness and even redemption by redirecting our steps toward the path of virtue.


Then Ulysses shows up. He throws Pastor John from the box car as it is moving.


Ulysses

Billy makes the association between this Ulysses and the Greek hero. Towles goes into Ulysses’ history. Emmett returns to find Billy with Ulysses.


Duchess

Duchess finds Woolly and talks his way out of an officer taking him to jail. And now a sordid business of murder of his old prison camp director. One down, two to go. Obviously, Duchess has an agenda besides helping Woolly, Billy and Emmett.


Another Greek myth reference-labyrinth.


Emmett

Travels in a boxcar with Billy, Ulysses and Emmett.



Part Six

Duchess

Duchess is trying to track down his Dad. Maybe #2? He finds where his Dad was at the Sunshine Hotel. His Dad had a case made up for each of his Shakespeare plays. Inside there was his disguise kit.


… seeing the corner of the book poking out from the folds of his sheets. I should have known. The poor old chap, he suffers from the most dangerous addiction of all. I guess if you are reading this book, you too suffer from this addiction.


Talked about FritzWilliams


Emmett

Ulysses, Billy and Emmett have made it to New York. Ulysses shows them to a homeless camp.


Wooly

Woolly’s family placed a lot of expectations on their children. So when Woolly and Duchess came to New York, Woolly thought: Manhattan was absotively filled with expectations. There were so many expectations, they had to build the buildings eighty stories high so they would have enough room to stack them one on top of the other. This was not a positive thought to Woolly.


He reads yesterday’s newspaper while Duchess runs around New York.


Duchess

Duchess talks with FritzWilliams about where his father is..


Sally

Sally argues with her father.


Ulysses

Ulysses is changing-he is getting attached to Billy.



Part Five

Wooly

Duchess and Woolly go to Woolly’s sister's house.


Duchess

Duchess feels he owes Townsend for a beating Townsend took while Duchess gets off free. Duchess goes to Harlem to find Townsend and to get the score evened. He lets Townsend punch him three times. See what Duchess learnt from the beating that Emmett got.


One thing which makes up for it is that Duchess made it so that when Townsend was being set up, he conceived to make the person setting up Townsend took the fall In there, he made a speech which included” We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. I think Towles cribbed this [He did from William Shakespeare’s Henry V. There is a speech cal;lled This day is called the feast of Crispian which contains it.]. On the other hand, he has Duchess looking for opportunities rather than fearing them. Instead of taking a chance, he looks at it as having been given a chance. That is a good way to put it.


Emmett

This may be the point of the story: Sister Agnes had told Emmett that Duchess needed someone to look after him and save him from his own misguided intentions.


Emmett was now trying to navigate New York, without a map or understanding of the layout. He was looking for where Duchess’ father’s agency. He is given a lead and follows the same trail as Duchess.


Ulysses

Billy retells the story of the Greek Uylsses. Then Ulysses tells his own story. As part of it, he says: The Good Lord does not call you to your feet with hymns from the cherubim and Gabriel blowing his horn. He calls you to your feet by making you feel alone and forgotten.


Pastor John

Pastor John’s trip to New York. He strikes Ulysses unaware. The boy fights and escapes. But his backpack is there and Pastor John looks for the silver dollars.


Ulysses

Ulysses regains conscientiousness. He knocks out Pastor John. Ulysses makes sure Billy is taken care of. Then makes sure Pastor John will no longer bother anyone.


Duchess

Duchess recounts being at Woolly’s sister’s house. He says a story of Marceline and how he was wrongfully accused of stealing his watch when Marceline committed suicide.


Marceline Maupassant-Is this Marceline Orbes? I think the character is more modeled after Orbes than is. In the story he is a clown.



Part Four

Woolly

Woolly goes to his favorite store, FAO Schwarz-a toy store. That is where his sister Sarah finds him.


Chippendale table


Duchess

Duchess explores Sarah’s house alone.


Emmett

Conversation with Townsend. Story of why Townsend was at the reformed jail. Townsend gives Emmett a tour Not the landmarks of Harlem, but the landmarks of their conversations. This is more important than saying this thing happened in 1898. It says who you are.


Sally

Sally finds out that her father has a girlfriend.


Emmett

Emmett brings Billy to the Circus to find Duchess. They find Woolly. The circus is meant more as a pretext to have women remove clothing. Woolly tells Emmett where to find Duchess, up where the performers live/change clothes. Duchess is found playing a piano. Emmett is drugged by Duchess and sent into a room with one of the women to be seduced. But he went unconscious before that happened.


Duchess

Duchess, Woolly and Billy set off into Manhattan. They see the Empire State Building, where Professor Abernathe’s office is said to be. Duchess wants to put an end to a Billy’s know it all and suggests they pay him a visit. They find the office. The professor is real and is interested in Billy. And then in Ulysses.


Wooly

The night from Woolly’s perspective. And then they were on to the hobo camp to meet Ulysses. Ulysses tells his story and how you have to earn everything in life. He said: I might finally have earned the right to hope again, Woolly understood that here was a question disguised as a statement. And Woolly found it to be beautiful.


Abernathy understood Ulysses and realized he had not earned his place. Abernathy gives a task to Ulysses like the Oracle did to the Greek.



Part Three

Wooly

At Sarah’s house, making dinner, waiting for Emmett..


Duchess

Killing time at Sarah’s house. Making dinner, wondering if Emmett would show up.


Emmett

Goes over Emmett awaking after having been drugged. The idea was to give Emmett his first taste of sex. Instead, he passed out. He wanted to refuse breakfast from them. Then Emmett was reminded that half the time, manners are there for your own good. Breakfast is what he needed. He ended up being grateful for their kindness.


To find Woolly’s sister’s address, one of the prostitutes has a copy of the social register. She notes that the upper crust nothing ever changes.


America is three thousand miles wide, he thought to himself. Five days before, he and Billy had set out with the intention of driving fifteen hundred miles west to California. Instead, they had traveled fifteen hundred miles east to New York. Having arrived, Emmett had crisscrossed the city from Times Square to lower Manhattan and back. To Brooklyn and Harlem. And when, at long last, it seemed his destination was within reach, Emmett had taken three trains, four taxis, and now was on foot.


All of the travel to find Woolly’s sister’s house left Emmett time to think of his own father and how he always loved him and never deserted him. He could not say the same for Duchess’ father. A certain amount of forgiveness was now in his mind. That still does not hold Emmett back from getting ready to slug Duchess.


Wooly

Woolly occupies Billy’s time by giving away his heirloom watch. It needed to be wound up 14 times each day to keep accurate time. Either way—whether he wound it sixteen times or wound it twelve—it was a little like when Alice stepped through the looking glass, or the Pevensies through the wardrobe, only to find themselves in a world that was and wasn’t theirs. A CS Lewis reference, along with a Lewis Carrol.


Duchess

Starts the chapter with a Sister Agnes quote: the wise man tattles on himself. I have a form of this, that I would rather write my own obituary.


But Emmett does not slug him. Duchess gives him back the remainder of the money.


Sally

Sally has not heard from Emmett like he promised. So she figures out where he is and drives to New York.


Emmett

Dinner is served by Duchess. A good meal seems to take down stress and everybody is on speaking terms. Sarah and Dennis walk into the room to discover Dennis’ best champagne has been poured down the drain four a magic trick. Dennis has a talk with Woolly with the result that Woolly will be working as a runner for a stock firm.


Emmett

Emmetts emotions went from merriment to shame seeing Dennis. He remembered the train incident where he judged the partying and waste which went on there. How quickly Emmett had judged those two? Was he not just as guilty? So he cleaned up the best he could. Sally came down and helped Emmett clean up. Emmett felt there was comfort of knowing one’s sense of right and wrong was shared by another, and thus was somehow more true.



Part Two

Duchess

How magic or at least magicians work. Then Woolly and Duchess make their way to Woolly’s family “camp”-a huge retreat with a suitable house on it. Woolly gives a tour of the house. Duchess had some doubt about whether there was $150,000 on the premises until going through the house. Here was a room of a man who knew not only how to make money, but how to keep it. Which, after all, are two different things entirely.


There is a picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Duchess asked who signed it? Oliver, he said. He also signed the Articles of Confederation


When they come to the safe where the money is, Woolly does not have the combination.


Emmett

Emmett, Sally and Billy are left at Sarah’s house with Sarah. This chapter is being told about Emmett, not being told by Emmett. Emmett tries to make amends by painting a room. Woolly has left a note explaining and apologizing. Sarah says it is OK to spend the night at the house. Sarah notes that: When we’re young, so much time is spent teaching us the importance of keeping our vices in check. Our anger, our envy, our pride. But when I look around, it seems to me that so many of our lives end up being hampered by a virtue instead.


Wooly
Woolly goes through the house remembering things while Duchess goes to a hardware store to see if he can get something to break into a safe. Woolly sets himself up to have a comfortable daydream, as he takes his bottle of medicine.


Abacus

Life is like a diamond. It starts as a point, expands outward, until it reaches its limits. Then the lines of a life narrow to a point.How easily we forget—we in the business of storytelling—that life was the point all along. Abacus’s life is not following the diamond shape because of the encounter with Billy. It is widening again, instead of narrowing. He is going on an adventure with Ulysses.


Billy

Billy understands it is time for him to add his own chapter into his book, Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers. He needs to figure out where the middle of the adventure is. He goes through various possibilities. The place to start: When Emmett was released from prison.



Part One

Emmett

Emmett goes to get his car back. Townsend says he is a wanted man, along with his light blue car. Emmett and Townsend talk about their plans. Townsend is thinking of going into the Army. He says that a black man, whether you end up carrying a mailbag, operating an elevator, pumping gas, or doing time, you’re going to be wearing a uniform. So you might as well choose the one that suits you.


Sally’s truck gave out. So she will be going with Emmett and Billy to California. But as they are discussing events and why the police are on the lookout, Emmett decides that he needs to find Duchess and Woolly. This transition seems a bit weak.


Sally

Sally does not want to be considered part of the luggage, nor part of Emmett’s household, which is what Emmett was assuming and trying to avoid. This led Sally to think that there is nothing bigger than a man’s opinion of himself.


Sally discovers that Billy is gone.


Emmett

Emmett gets to Woolly’s family’s “camp”. He goes through the building looking for Woolly and Duchess. He finds Woolly dead from an overdose of his medicine. Duchess is found trying to open the safe, with no success. Billy had stolen away with Emmett. Duchess kidnaps him.


Duchess

Duchess tries to open the safe. Not successful. He finds Woolly having committed suicide. Emmett comes in on him. He knocks out Emmett for a few minutes and takes Billy, trying to convince him to help. Billy escapes.


Billy

Billy explains how and why he stole away in Emmett’s car. He sneaks through the house, unnoticed and observes Duchess trying to open the safe. When the safe was unattended, Billy figured out the combination and saw the money. When he sees Emmett going after Duchess and Duchess knocking out Emmett and Duchess kidnapping Billy, Billy takes things into his own hands and kicks Duchess. Billy hid in a little space under the stairs.


Billy thinks that Emmett has one flaw-anger, like Achilles.


Emmett

Confrontation with Duchess. Emmett knocks him out. The last will of Woolly is left, leaving Duchess, Billy and Emmett a third each of his inheritance. Billy opens the safe. They recover their share of the money. Then clean up. Having come fifteen hundred miles in the wrong direction, on the verge of traveling three thousand more, Emmett believed that the power within him was new in nature, that no one but he could know what he was capable of, and that he had only just begun to know it himself. Sally, Billy and Emmett start their trip to San Francisco from the Lincoln Highway from Times Square.


What to do with Duchess?


Duchess

Duchess wakes up and finds he is in a boat in a lake. Emmett had left Duchess with his share of Woolly’s inheritance. But the boat has a hole in it, putting Emmett in the awkward position of saving the money for himself. He cannot swim.



Evaluation:

 Having read Towles book, A Gentleman in Moscow, I was expecting both the enjoyment of Towles as a writer as well as a storyteller. Towles ability to put words together is still one worth paying attention to. I found the story line not as good as his previous work.[A note: when you hear Towles in an interview, he is a totally enjoyable person, so I wish I liked this book a lot more.]


Towles has several plot lines going through it. Young Billy is enthralled with the great heroes, both from Greek storytelling all the way through Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln Highway itself plays only a minor supporting role in this partial adaptation of the Ulysses story. Billy’s brother, Emmett, is trying to get both of them to San Francisco to start a new life away from a manslaughter conviction in his small town. Two of his fellow teenagers from the reform school manage to pull him away to New York in pursuit of treasure. The harder Emmett and Billy try to go west, they are drugged east. And that is the story.


Maybe it is because I was expecting something exceptional and found more of a story which seemed to drag. Or that it ends on a black note, a bit of a discord, I cannot say I appreciated this book like I thought I was going to.



 
Notes from my book group:

The book is named Lincoln Highway. Why is the highway named that? What part does it play in the book? What does it represent to each of the characters in the book?


Why does Towles have the Parts go in reverse order? [Note: In A Gentleman in Moscow, Towles also plays games with the chapters.]


Professor Abernathe, and Billy, have the tales being told in medias res, “in the middle of things.” Why is this important? How does this complicate the story telling from Billy’s perspective? How do you know when you are in the middle of an adventure?


When Woolly gets to Manhattan, he thinks: Manhattan was absotively filled with expectations. Why is Woolly so averse to expectations? Is it because of him? His upbringing? Or is Towles trying to tell us something bigger?


Towles shows us through Duchess that there are two ways to react to opportunity: fear or taking a chance. What categories do the characters fall into? How does Towles show the outcomes of each category?


Sister Agnes had told Emmett that Duchess needed someone to look after him and save him from his own misguided intentions. What makes Sister Agnes say this? Is this a fair responsibility to put onto Emmett? How does Emmett shoulder this responsibility? Does he fail?


Who is killed or hurt in this story? Could Towles have written the story without this? How would that story have been different?


When Townsend gives Emmett a tour of Harlem he is said to have given him a tour Not the landmarks of Harlem, but the landmarks of their conversations. Which would you find more interesting? What kind of tour would you give people of your own area?


When Professor Abernathe has his talk with Ulysses, he notes that what Ulysses is lacking is a task, particularly a meaningless task like the original Ulysses had. Why is this important? How would you react to such a task? Would you see it as redeeming?


At Sarah and Dennis’ house, after having a party, Emmett remembers the after-math of a party on the train he had hopped on. He remembers the judgement he had on the oppolunce of the party and the shame he now feels. Is Towles echoing Jesus’ teaching about judging? How does this come into play?


Explain this: When we’re young, so much time is spent teaching us the importance of keeping our vices in check. Our anger, our envy, our pride. But when I look around, it seems to me that so many of our lives end up being hampered by a virtue instead.


Towles puts these words into Townsend’s month: a black man, whether you end up carrying a mailbag, operating an elevator, pumping gas, or doing time, you’re going to be wearing a uniform. So you might as well choose the one that suits you. Do you think Towles was only thinking about the 1950’s or something more recent? How so?


Duchess makes up his personal history. Do you think he is trying to fool Emmett, Woolly and Billy? Or himself? Why does he feel the need to make this up?


Evening up the score is a major theme of the book. Give instances where that occurs. Do the instances where this happens really even the score? Have you had this kind of an event? How did it work out?


Why is Sally in the book?


At the end of Part Nine, Duchess receives a mystery shoe box. What is in it? Why does Towles include this?


Sister Agnes, while a minor character has some very profound lines. She recounts the parable of the Good Samaritan. She takes from it that A good Christian shows compassion toward those who are in difficulty. And that is an important part of the parable’s meaning. But an equally important point that Jesus is making is that we do not always get to choose to whom we should show our charity. What do you think about her interpretation? How does that work out in practice? How does Towles apply this in the book?


Another Sister Agnes quote is that the wise man tattles on himself. Is this wise?


Duchess thinks that for most people, it does not matter where they are going as long as they are going. Have you had a time of “random” or non-directed travel? How was it?


How would you have solved Duchess’ problem in the boat-saving the money as well as not sinking? What is Towles trying to show us in this scene? Is this something he is showing throughout the book? If so, where else do people face this kind of issue?


Do you think Emmett meant to kill Duchess in the boat?



How do you want your life to change because you read this book?



Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of Lincoln Highway? What is the Lincoln Highway?

Does this story work as a novel?

Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?

Which character was the most convincing? Least?

Which character did you identify with?

Which one did you dislike?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

In what context was religion talked about in this book?

Was there anybody you would consider religious?

How did they show it?

Was the book overtly religious?

How did it affect the book's story?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

What central ideas does the author present?

Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific

What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas?

Is the evidence convincing...definitive or...speculative?

Does the author depend on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?

What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?

Are these idea’s controversial?

To whom and why?

Are there solutions which the author presents?

Do they seem workable? Practicable?

How would you implement them?

Describe the culture talked about in the book.

How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?

What economic or political situations are described?

Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

Of how God is viewed?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

Reading Groups General Fiction Guide



Amor Towles book group questions:

  • How do you think Emmett, Duchess, Woolly, and Sally’s various upbringings—particularly their relationships to their parents—have shaped them? How have their parents’ choices influenced their own desires and ambitions? When you were eighteen, which aspects of your parents’ lives did you hope to emulate, and which did you hope to cast aside?
  • Early in the novel, Emmett meets Sister Agnes, a nun who describes the faith of children, who look upon a miracle “with awe and wonder, yes, but without disbelief.” From the context, it’s fairly clear that Sister Agnes is referencing Billy in her remark. How would you describe Billy’s personality? While he is the youngest and least experienced character in the novel, one could argue that he has the greatest influence on other characters. What is it about Billy that makes this so?
  • Throughout the novel, an array of stories are recalled—stories drawn from Professor Abernathe’s Compendium, from the Vaudevillian world of Duchess’s father, from Shakespeare, cinema, and the Bible. What role do stories play in the shaping of the different characters’ lives and personalities? Are these stories a productive or counterproductive force? What story—whether handed down to you from your parents or experienced in a novel or film—had a particularly strong influence on shaping you as a young person?
  • The novel takes places in the mid-1950s—a period of peace, prosperity, and upward mobility in the US; a period in which television was in its infancy, and which came just before the advents of rock & roll, the modern civil rights movement, and the “sexual revolution”. How does the era shape the journeys of the characters, if at all? What aspect of their journeys are unique to their times, and what aspects were shared by you when you were on the verge of adulthood?
  • Hilary—and old friend and member of my book group—observed to me in passing, Well, of course, money is one of the central themes of your book. It’s on the minds of all the characters. This hadn’t occurred to me for one second! Do you think Hilary is right? On a related note, discuss the broader themes in the novel of moral accounting: of debt and recompense, transgression and atonement, sin and redemption.
  • The City of New York is a thousand cities rolled into one. How does New York differ in the eyes of Emmett, Duchess, Woolly, and Billy?
  • One of the pleasures of writing fiction is discovering upon completion of a project that some thread of imagery has run through the work without your complete awareness–forming, in essence, an unintentional motif. While I was very conscious of the recurrence of Maps & Floorplans in the book, and Photographs, here are a few motifs that I only recognized after the fact: Timepieces such as Billy’s surplus watch, the two grandfather clocks, Marceline’s pocket watch, and Wallace’s officer’s watch; Tables, Desks, & Chairs such as the furniture in the doll case at FAO Schwarz, the long table in the dining room at the camp, and the desks of “Dennis” and Professor Abernathe; Cases such as the wicker picnic basket, Woolly’s cigar box, Harry Hewett’s Othello case, and the shoebox of preserves. What role do any of these motifs play in the thematic composition of the book? And if you see me in an airport, can you explain them to me?
  • The tone of each character’s chapters differs from the tone of the other characters’ chapters. How would you describe the style of the different characters’ chapters? To what degree does the style shape your sense of the characters’ personalities? How does reading Duchess’s first person narrative influence you in comparison to Emmett’s third person narrative?
  • Emmett’s father leaves Emmett a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” as part of his legacy. Do you agree with Emerson’s argument that what is within the individual is new to nature, and that we have no idea of what we can achieve until we’ve tried? What about Emerson’s idea strikes you as particularly American? What about this novel strikes you as particularly American? What does self-reliance mean to Emmett, to Duchess, and to Sally?
  • There are a number of smaller legacies in the novel. In addition to the Emerson quotation left to Emmett, there are the recipes handed down to Sally, the officer’s watch handed down in the Wolcott family, the St. Christopher medal passed from Billy to Ulysses. What role do these small legacies play within the larger themes of the novel? What smaller legacy have you received that has meant a great deal to you?
  • How would you describe each main character’s transformation over the course of the novel? Which character do you think evolves most significantly? Which characters, in your opinion, found what they were looking for? Do you have a favorite character, and why them?
  • A question for those of you who have read my other books: While Rules of Civility covers a year in Katey’s life, and A Gentleman in Moscow spans three decades, The Lincoln Highway takes place over just ten days. How does the span of time effect the narrative and your experience of it? What are the benefits and limitations that come with reading a novel spanning days rather than years? While A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway differ in duration, the ending of the two books match each other in a very specific way. What is this commonality? And what are its implications when considering the two stories side by side?
  • Woolly’s sister, Sarah, observes to Emmett: “If you take a trait that by all appearances is a merit—a trait that is praised by pastors and poets, a trait that we have come to admire in our friends and hope to foster in our children—and you give it to some poor soul in abundance, it will almost certainly prove an obstacle to their happiness.” Do you think this is true? What virtue do you think each of the main characters possesses in excess?
  • Given inflation, $50,000 in 1954 would be the equivalent of about $500,000 today. Late in your discussion, after you’ve had the chance to share a bottle of wine or a few cocktails, tell each other what you would do if you were suddenly given half a million dollars.

10 The Lincoln Highway Book Club Questions

  1. Every character–main and secondary–in this novel has a dream. Some are big and some are simple, but all of the hopes and dreams have collateral consequences. Whose dreams do you think had the biggest impact on the rest of the characters? Whose dreams do you identify with most?

  2. The Lincoln Highway is full of expectations based on class, gender, and race. The burden of expectations can be heavy. Discuss how expectations affect the character’s choices. How have others’ expectations of you changed the decisions you’ve made in your life? What expectations might have been on you, if you were a young adult in the 1950s?

  3. Duchess spends much of the novel concerned with settling moral debts both owed and owed to him. Do you agree with his idea that the universe is keeping score in some way? Do you think he deserved the ending he got? What do you think his life would have looked like if he had known how to swim?

  4. By all accounts, Wooly lived a life of privilege unlike any of the other characters. But, Wooly was very different than the other boys. In today’s world, Wooly might have been diagnosed with a mental health or cognitive condition and received treatment. If Wooly were alive today, how do you think his journey might have ended? How have we made progress in the treatment of young adult mental health, and where is there progress yet to be made?

  5. A central theme of The Lincoln Highway is ambition–wanting more than you were born into. What do you think happened to Emmett and Billy’s mother? Where do you think she is now? Besides the boy’s mother, Sally serves as the central female character in the book. What do you make of the relationship between Emmett and Sally? What do you think happens to Sally after the novel ends?

  6. One of the criticisms of the book is the depiction of Billy as overly precocious beyond his years. Have you ever known a child like that? Were you a child like that? Do you think Emmett was fit to be a caregiver for his younger brother?

  7. The Lincoln Highway is a book about metamorphosis. Which character do you think transforms the most over the course of the book?

  8. Even though there are a handful of central characters, the novel introduces many secondary characters along the journey. Of those, who do you most identify with? Which of the supporting characters would you like to read a full novel about?

  9. The era of the book almost functions as another character — what themes in the book do you think are unique to the time period, and which ones do you think would persist if the novel took place in modern times?

  10. With all that happens in the novel, it’s hard to believe it only spans 10 days. What were the most memorable 10 days of your life? Why do you think the author chose to constrain the story to this limited amount of time?




New Words:
  • Folderol: trivial or nonsensical fuss, a showery but useless item
  • Panache: flamboyant confidence of style or manner.
  • Prevarication: to deviate from the truth
  • Peripatetic: traveling from place to place, in particular working or based in various places for relatively short periods.

Book References:
  • Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
  • Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers by Professor Abacus Abernathe (fake book)
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  • Othello by William Shakespeare
  • Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  • King Lear by William Shakespeare
  • Macbeth by William Shakespeare
  • Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
  • The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx

Good Quotes:

  • First Line: June 12, 1954 - The drive from Salina to Morgen was three hours, and for much of it, Emmett hadn’t said a word.
  • Last Line: I never could remember.
  • Time is that which God uses to separate the idle from the industrious. Part Nine, Chp Sally
  • For what is kindness but the performance of an act that is both beneficial to another and unrequired? Part Nine, Chp Sally
  •  A good Christian shows compassion toward those who are in difficulty. And that is an important part of the parable’s [Good Samaritan] meaning. But an equally important point that Jesus is making is that we do not always get to choose to whom we should show our charity. Part Eight, Chp Emmett
  • The Good Lord does not call you to your feet with hymns from the cherubim and Gabriel blowing his horn. He calls you to your feet by making you feel alone and forgotten. Part Five, Chp Ulysses
  • [There is] comfort of knowing one’s sense of right and wrong was shared by another, and thus was somehow more true.Part Three, Chp Emmett
  • When we’re young, so much time is spent teaching us the importance of keeping our vices in check. Our anger, our envy, our pride. But when I look around, it seems to me that so many of our lives end up being hampered by a virtue instead. Part Two, Chp Emmett
  • How easily we forget—we in the business of storytelling—that life was the point all along. Part Two, Chp Abacus
Table of Contents:
  • Part Ten
    • Emmett
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
  • Part Nine
    • Emmett
    • Duchess
    • Woolly
    • Sally
    • Duchess
  • Part Eight
    • Emmett
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
  • Part Seven
    • Duchess
    • Woolly
    • Emmett
    • Pastor John
    • Ulysses
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
  • Part Six
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
    • Woolly
    • Duchess
    • Sally
    • Ulysses
  • Part Five
    • Woolly
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
    • Ulysses
    • Pastor John
    • Ulysses
    • Duchess
  • Part Four
    • Woolly
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
    • Sally
    • Emmett
    • Duchess
    • Woolly
  • Part Three
    • Woolly
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
    • Woolly
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
    • Woolly
    • Duchess
    • Sally
    • Woolly
    • Emmett
  • Part Two
    • Duchess
    • Emmett
    • Woolly
    • Abacus
    • Billy
  • Part One
    • Emmett
    • Sally
    • Emmett
    • Duchess
    • Billy
    • Emmett
    • Duchess

References:
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