What a wonderfully imaginative and immersive 10 day journey with four young lads, on a road trip with destiny. A lot happens in ten days to this foursome, all of it unexpected. And, as a result, amazing. It is 1954, 18 year old Emmett Watson is on his way home to Morgen, Nebraska after having spent some time in a juvenile home following the accidental death of a local boy at a fair. His father has died, and Emmett's sentence is shortened as he has to look after his 8 year old brother Billy. What an extraordinary child Billy is, with his compendium of an alphabetical listing of 26 heroes, mythical and historical who all go on long and extraordinary life journey's. This is Billy's bible. Emmett knows there is nothing to keep him and Billy in Morgen Nebraska. So he has decided to get his 1948 Studebaker roadworthy and drive the Lincoln Highway west to its end point in San Francisco. There is another motive to this destination and journey too which is a lovely, albeit sad story in itself. But two stowaways - Duchess and Woolly - from the juvenile home also make it to Morgen Nebraska and have other ideas about the journey on the Lincoln Highway - to go east to New York, just for a few days until business over there is sorted out. Naturally nothing turns out as planned. Oh, so much happens over 600 odd pages, so many extraordinary people they encounter, things go wrong then they go right again, topsy turvey. I loved all the characters, even the not so good ones. They all grow and change, in line with the challenges they face. All in 10 days, it's stunning. I love how the characters' look at our world in so many different and diverse ways. 1950s America is fabulously drawn - the small towns and their small mindedness, the idea of the road trip, New York and all its parts, the railway. This is such a gem of a novel, almost my favourite read of the year so far.
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