#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER More than ONE MILLION copies soldA TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book
Club PickA New York Times Notable Book and Chosen by Oprah Daily Time NPR The Washington
Post Bill Gates and Barack Obama as a Best Book of the Year Wise and wildly entertaining . . .
permeated with light wit youth. The New York Times Book Review A classic that we will read
for years to come. Jenna Bush Hager Read with Jenna book club Fantastic. Set in 1954 Towles
uses the story of two brothers to show that our personal journeys are never as linear or
predictable as we might hope. Bill Gates A real joyride . . . elegantly constructed and
compulsively readable. NPR The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of
Civility and master of absorbing sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive
novel set in 1950s America In June 1954 eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to
Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for
involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone his father recently deceased and the family
farm foreclosed upon by the bank Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother
Billy and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives
away Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk
of the warden's car. Together they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's
future one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction to the City
of New York. Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view Towles's third novel
will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new
and richly imagined settings characters and themes. Once again I was wowed by Towles s
writing especially because The Lincoln Highway is so different from A Gentleman in Moscow in
terms of setting plot and themes. Towles is not a one-trick pony. Like all the best
storytellers he has range. He takes inspiration from famous hero s journeys including The
Iliad The Odyssey Hamlet Huckleberry Finn and Of Mice and Men. He seems to be saying that
our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as an interstate highway. But he
suggests when something (or someone) tries to steer us off course it is possible to take the
wheel. Bill Gates
