Journey down highway

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, Hutchinson, $37

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. In June 1954 Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile detention centre where he has been serving time for involuntary manslaughter.

Emmett has been released early because of his father’s sudden death and a young brother now needing family support.

On arriving home Emmett is dismayed, but not totally surprised, to find both the bank manager and neighbouring farmer there waiting for him. Emmett has always believed that farming for his father has been a fairly haphazard process becoming even more so when his mother walked out shortly after the birth of his brother Billy.

Bad debts has ensured the foreclosure of the farm. His neighbouring farmer suggested

Emmett and Billy upped sticks and left town especially as some of the town folk were threatening unfinished business with Emmett.

Billy, who had stumbled on some old postcards from his mother among his father’s effects, had decided they must go to California and find their mother. Billy had studied the Lincoln Highway and that was the way to go even though they would be starting halfway down the route.

When Emmett and Billy were by themselves , Emmett discovers two friends from the work farm have stowed away in the boot of the warden’s car. They have very different plans for Emmett and Billy. So begins a fateful trip in completely the opposite directions . . .

New York City.

The Lincoln Highway is a masterpiece. Four characters, all deserving top place honours, Emmett, thoughtful and reliable, Billy, a studious and observant boy and then the two runaways, Woolly, an unfortunate rich boy and Duchess, Woolly’s protector, wellmeaning, but a liability.

The Lincoln Highway is an extraordinary journey through 1950s America. A novel to treasure. —