"Even his griefs are a joy"

I usually try to buy used books, but when I found out Amor Towles had a new book coming out, not only did I buy it in hardback, I pre-ordered it so long ago that its arrival was like an early Christmas present. Last Sunday morning, I finally found time to start on its 592 pages at breakfast. By bedtime, I was relying on a booklight to finish the last few chapters.

The Lincoln Highway, as you might suspect, is a road trip tale. After the singular setting of his last novel A Gentleman in Moscow, Towle’s scope of story (and cast of narrators) can at first be a bit disorienting. Emmett has arrived home after his sentence at a juvenile work farm to find out his family’s farm has been foreclosed upon. So he and his younger brother decide to make a new start in California. 

Before they can head west, however, what was supposed to be a brief detour turns into a destination. For in the best adventure stories, it’s the dragons to be slayed, not the princess to be saved, that keeps the reader hooked.