Book Reviews: Amor Towles – The Lincoln Highway & A Gentleman in Moscow

I just read The Lincoln Highway, the third novel by American writer, Amor Towles. I’ve also read his second book, A Gentleman in Moscow. So, I think it’s time for another book review, particularly a novel, since my last few have been rock ‘n roll, travel or history books (see other book reviews here: Books). And since it makes sense to discuss both novels, you get two book reviews in one post.

The Lincoln Highway

It’s 1954 and a warden is driving 18-year-old Emmett Watson to his home in Nebraska after he has served his time at a youth detention farm. Emmett’s parents are gone, and the family farm is being foreclosed. Emmett and his eight-year-old brother Billy are planning to go to California to start anew and to find their mother in San Francisco. Billy is a brain who takes life literally with obsessive compulsiveness. He has laid out a plan on the Lincoln Highway map following the westward progression of his mother based on the nine postcards she sent after leaving the family. Two fellow juvenile inmates, Duchess and Wooly, suddenly show up after hiding themselves in the warden’s trunk and have different ideas about future travels. They want to go to New York and break into the safe at Wooly’s family estate and divvy up the money. Duchess and Wooly abscond with Emmett’s Studebaker and head to New York. Emmett and Billy take off after them on the freight train. So begins the envisioned road trip, just in completely the opposite direction and without a car.

The Lincoln Highway covers a lot of territory in 10 days, both in miles and characters. The boys join the rail-riding vagabonds and eventually meet an army vet, a pastor, professor, thespians, and prostitutes. It’s a joyride alright, with many a detour and squashed hopes of making progress to California. Duchess is a very maddening young man. His destiny at the end of the book will probably raise mixed emotions. He and Emmett both have scores to settle and amends to make. Some of the side stories don’t go anywhere, which could be a criticism, but in life, and particularly in travels, short-lived encounters are a key part of the experience. In the words of the professor, “the life is what it’s all about.” There’s a lot of life in The Lincoln Highway.

Professor Abacus Abernathe’s Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers is Billy’s constant reading companion and reference point in life. The profiles in the book are both real-life and mythical heroes. Billy knows the tales by heart and seems to favor Achilles and Homer’s use of media res, (Latin: “in the middle of the things”). I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler, but forces conspire to thwart Emmett and Billy’s Lincoln Highway odyssey. The Lincoln Highway starts in New York and culminates in California, so by starting media res in Nebraska the journey is actually well underway.

D² Rating – The Lincoln Highway ◼◼◼◩☐

A Gentleman in Moscow

In 1922, a Russian aristocrat, Count Rostov, is sentenced to house arrest at his current residence for life. He lives at the Hotel Metropol Moscow, across the square from the Kremlin. As part of his punishment, he must move from his luxury suite to the cramped servant’s quarters on the sixth floor. This is his world for 32 years. And he can’t even go outside…ever.

While history unfolds outside, the Count has lots of time and people with which to discuss the events of the world. His fall in fortune and confinement open up a wider social circle than he ever had – a one-eyed cat, young girl, seamstress, chef, maitre d’, poet, actress, juggler, “daughter,” architect, conductor, prince, and military officials. Nina, the young girl, shows him every nook and cranny of the hotel. Nina comes back years later and leaves her daughter with the Count while she makes arrangements with her husband in Siberia for Sofia to join them. He never sees her again hence gaining a “daughter” at age 49. Towles directly paints these characters with their doubts, ambitions, fears, passions, and laughs. All within the opulent cocoon of the grand hotel.

The book will put you in the lobby of Old-World elegance. You won’t feel locked inside. It’s a rotating cast of revolutionaries, royalty, movie stars, generals, and intellectuals. All looked after dutifully by the hotel staff. Rostov walks in both worlds from brilliantly holding court with these dignitaries, to taking their order as a waiter and sharing his immense knowledge of wine.

A Gentleman in Moscow has elements of history, parenting, romance, humor, and a splash of Inspector Poirot, all culminating in a challenge to the Count’s character: does he escape and defect to the west or does the love of country and a woman keep him in Russia?

D² Rating – A Gentleman in Moscow ◼◼◼◩☐