18. The Lincoln Highway

Amor Towles. 2021.

In a lot of ways, this is a typical boys coming of age novel in which a bunch of boys set out on a grand adventure in which women and girls are marginalized, although the introduction of the occasional voice of one woman left me with the impression that the book itself was highly aware of this situation and this seeming self-awareness made it substantially more palatable.  The strength of this book is in the prose, which is expertly paced and worded.  The juxtaposition of a young reader's obsession with a book that contains highly compressed short stories about adventurers against the adventure story in his own life is crafted in the best way that stories within stories are sometimes crafted.  The complexity of the characters, with no one being good or evil (except maybe one character who has no redeeming moments that I recall) reminds us that behind so many youths making poor decisions are parents who did things that make those decisions make sense.  I found the bouncing between narrators kept this perspective fresh and overall the story just kept unfolding in layered, interesting ways that kept me enthralled.

Recommend.

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