Amor Towles
Somewhere in the last 100 pages, Duchess tells us that in vaudeville, it is all about the setup. He brings up Mandrake the Magnificent, who wasn’t a great magician, but what he lacked in the general act, he made up in the finale. The book is something like that. The countdown approach to chapters also helps set up a fantastic climax.
The Lincoln Highway is not Rules of Civility, it’s definitely not A Gentleman in Moscow. You’ll be better off without that set of expectations. The characters are younger and less sophisticated though still fascinating, and the narrative didn’t have the subtle nuances the earlier books had. It is probably closer to say, a Huckleberry Finn. Or as someone wrote, it’s an ode or love letter to the classic American road trip. I didn’t love it like I did the other two, but having said that, it is well structured and an absolutely enjoyable read. Something about the book(s) reminds me of Jeffrey Archer – the unambiguity of right and wrong, morally upright characters and a world that was less complex.
The story is of three boys in their late teens who know each other from a juvenile ‘camp’ – Emmett, Duchess and Wally. And Emmett’s precocious younger brother Billy, the fourth musketeer. Towles does a good job of creating multiple narrators – they add perspectives and help in making the characters (and their actions) relatable. The circumstances of the three are completely different, as are the reasons they landed up in the camp. Both of these factors exist on a continuum, with the three characters at different points. And in many ways, this have an impact on their character and the decisions they make. That’s essentially the book – good, evil, the choices we make, and their implications – now and later. In fact, with the destinations and detours, the road (The Lincoln Highway) from one end to the other (in this case, America) is probably a metaphor for life.
The book has connections to Towles’ earlier works. Amor Towles doesn’t seem to be done with Manhattan, and while it doesn’t have the presence it did in Rules of Civility, it is at least a side character. On p455, when Wally describes his uncle’s watch, I had a feeling of deja vu. Turns out the uncle is Wallace from Rules of Civility! The camp at Adirondacks is also revisited. And this might be just a coincidence, but June 1954 is when The Gentleman in Moscow ends. That’s also when this book begins. Maybe we have an Amor Towles Universe forming. I, for one, won’t mind that at all.
Asides: Once you’ve read about Leonello’s amazing business model and that special dish – Fettuccine Mio Amore (p 138), look up Amor Towles’ website for the recipe 🙂
My favourite part was in p505-6 when Abacus Abernathy gives a perspective on the two halves of life – divergence and convergence. First, the world opens out and then, as we age, it closes in. It was amazingly articulated and I could relate to it a lot.
