The Lincoln Highway

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Ten”

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Emmett”

On June 12, 1954, Emmett Watson is driven back to his family farm in Morgen, Nebraska from the juvenile correctional facility in Salina, Kansas, where he has just finished serving out an 18-month sentence for manslaughter. At the wheel is Warden Williams, who has a positive impression of the 18-year-old. Williams acknowledges the difference between Emmett and the other inmates, “[…] whatever series of events has brought them under our sphere of influence is just the beginning of a long journey of a life through trouble (4),” and that he knows Emmett feels remorse.

Waiting at home is Emmett’s neighbor Mr. Ransom, who has cared for Emmett’s brother Billy since the death of their father Charlie. Tom, from the bank, is present to oversee Emmett’s signature relinquishing his property. Emmett’s father had taken out several loans he could not repay, and their farm is being repossessed. Charlie Watson left Boston for Nebraska in 1933 to establish himself as a farmer, eschewing his family privilege in order to seek out an existence achieved entirely through his own efforts. Charlie never found success in farming, habitually making impractical decisions and seemingly always at odds with the weather and climate no matter how he tried to shift his approach. After Tom’s departure, Mr. Ransom tells Emmett that there are those in town who continue to harbor animosity toward him for the death of Jimmy Snyder. Mr. Ransom suggests that Emmett might consider starting over elsewhere. Emmett assures his neighbor that relocating is precisely what he intends to do.

Billy arrives with Mr. Ransom’s daughter Sally, and Emmett is apprehensive about telling him that they will have to leave home. Billy insists, however, that they must go to California. After Charlie’s death, Billy found nine postcards hidden among his possessions, all from their mother, who left them without warning in 1948. Billy has deduced that all the towns in the postmarks are along the Lincoln Highway and believes that the postcards are a trail she left for them. Her final postcard depicting Lincoln Park was sent from San Francisco. Their mother mentioned the 4th of July fireworks display at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in that park, and Billy is convinced that if they attend, they will find her.

Billy accompanies Emmett out to the barn. In the trunk of his blue 1948 Studebaker Lane Cruiser, Emmett finds the letter his father promised him along with a page torn from Emerson’s Essays and three thousand dollars in cash. Through the sentiments in the letter, Emmett perceives an explanation of his father’s actions. He embraces his father’s appeal to go out into the world and achieve something for himself, which only he can accomplish, based on his own unique gifts. As Emmett closes the trunk, he notices two people standing in the shadows.

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Duchess”

Duchess and Woolly, Emmett’s fellow inmates from Salina, stowed away in Warden Williams’s trunk. Emmett is against their decision to escape. Duchess claims that they had no choice because Woolly’s medicine is running out. Without it, Duchess insists, Woolly will begin to get “bluesy.” Emmett objects that what Woolly was being given at Salina is not medicine. Duchess describes Woolly as “always running about five minutes late (33),” while Emmett is “the type of guy who can see the whole picture right from the word go—the grander scheme and all the little details” (36). Duchess paints himself as acting in Woolly’s best interest, removing him from an environment that is becoming unbearable. Duchess tells Emmett that Woolly was left a trust fund, one which he is prevented from accessing because Woolly’s brother-in-law Dennis had Woolly declared “temperamentally unfit.” In a safe at Woolly’s family camp in the Adirondacks is $150,000 in cash, the approximate value of Woolly’s trust. Duchess claims that Woolly has offered them an even split of $50,000 each if Emmett will drive them to upstate New York. They plan to steal the money from the empty residence before it is reopened for the summer. Duchess assures Emmett that he would be back in Nebraska by the following week.

Duchess expresses no qualms about engaging in deception “that’s what you’d call an embellishment—a harmless little exaggeration in the service of emphasis (37).” Emmett is open about his doubts that Woolly came up with the idea and adamant that he wants no part of it. While the others sleep, Duchess snoops around in the Watson home. He rifles through Charlie Watson’s desk, stealing change, “waste not, want not,” and rifling through his bills and personal documents. Knowing that Emmett’s father had gone broke, Duchess looks for alcohol stashes throughout the house, surprised to find none. Duchess delves into biographical information on both Woolly and himself. Woolly is from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a child of privilege whose family’s resources and connections are numerous. Woolly attended three different boarding schools before finding himself at Salina. Duchess reveals that the first eight years of his own life were spent with his father. Harrison Hewett was an actor and a con man based in New York City but traveling frequently. When he was eight, Duchess’s father abandoned him at an orphanage in Omaha.

Part 1 Analysis

The first section of The Lincoln Highway constitutes the first day of Emmett’s release from the juvenile detention center at Salina and provides extensive background for the young men who will play the most essential roles in the narrative. The universally high esteem in which Emmett is held by the adults who know him, including Warden Williams, Sherriff Petersen, and Mr. Ransom, cement the fact that Emmett is someone whose incarceration was the result of a single, grievous error and which is not a reflection of who he is as a person, nor is it indicative of what they believe his future will hold. Emmett is encouraged by everyone around him to embrace the opportunity to determine his fate beginning with this fresh start. Even his father’s letter confers upon Emmett Charlie Watson’s blessing; he does not expect his son to remain attached to the farm that he so cherished.

Instead, what Charlie Watson wants for his son is the same opportunity that Charlie took advantage of when he left Boston and decided on a radically different life path for himself. Mr. Watson’s love of Emerson and the inclusion of a page from Emerson in his letter to Emmett underscore the theme of harnessing one’s autonomy and the spirit of embarking on a pursuit that is wholly one’s own. When Duchess and Woolly appear, directly after Emmett has read the letter, their imposition foreshadows the continued hindrance they will present throughout the novel as Duchess relentlessly pursues his own interests under the guise of helping others and promoting circumstances of mutual benefit. Emmett and Billy have been provided the opportunity to leave Morgen and make a clean break, the new life that Emmett wants for them both, but his entanglements from Salina linger when he makes the decision not to insist that Woolly and Duchess leave the house.

The biographical information presented in TEN reveals the stark differences between the upbringings and familial circumstances of each of the young men. Both Watson brothers and Woolly are the progeny of genteel families; though they are separated by current status with respect to material wealth and family dynamics, the sense of morality and responsibility they hold is indicative of a childhood in which they were instructed from an early age in right from wrong. The early inclusion of the description of Duchess’s father offers an opportunity to draw conclusions about the type of value system Duchess holds. Emmett’s challenge to Duchess that he does not believe it was Woolly’s idea to steal the money from Woolly’s family is not offered a response, and while Emmett does not make the effort to consistently challenge every assertion on Duchess’s part that he believes to be an exaggeration or outright lie, Emmett is not afraid to insinuate that Duchess is not a forthright person.

Though a chapter dedicated to Woolly’s experience is not included in TEN, this section begins to unveil the complexities of Woolly’s combined developmental and psychological characteristics and suggests the relationship between Duchess and Woolly is exploitative. Duchess’s approach is one of manipulation and deception, and Woolly’s vulnerability relative to someone who is neurotypical is integral to Duchess’s ability to move forward with the plan to exploit Woolly’s familial wealth and inherent generosity.