The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

The only other book I have read by this author is A Gentleman in Moscow. It is a book that revolves around similar themes as his last--right and wrong, good and bad, and how to decide which is which. While the former is a claustrophobic book set in post Russian Revolution Moscow with an aristocrat under lockdown in a luxury hotel and might be seen to channel Tolstoy, this one has shades of Steinbeck with a road trip across America on the newly christened Lincoln Highway. The highway stretches from Time Square in New York City all the way to San Francisco and opened up the minds of Americans to adventure. My grandparents drove their brand new Cadillac on this route about the same time as this. It is 1954, and 18-year-old Emmett Watson has just finished a spell at the Kansas work farm where he was sent after accidentally killing a bully. His father has died and left a mass of debt, and his little brother, Billy, is keen for the two of them to head to California in search of their mother, who walked out eight years ago. But there’s a problem-- Emmett’s car has been boosted by a couple of boys, Duchess and Woolly, on the run from the law. As you might imagine, incarceration wasn't good for any of them. They are driving the car to New York City to raid Woolly’s trust fund and settle a few scores. Duchess, though not unlikable, is untrustworthy. He leads everyone astray and they struggle in their own ways to keep up and not get burned.