The siren call of the open road is the theme of The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. One of the four main characters, eight-year-old Billy, is obsessed with the exploits of heroes – Daniel Boone, Ulysses, Galileo, and wants an adventure of his own.
His older brother and guardian, Emmett, hopes the open road will lead him to a new beginning and second chance. The third, Duchess, views it as a chance for escape, possibly from his violent nature, and definitely from its results. And Wooly, the fourth character, wants a road to take him home.
Alongside the physical road the boys travel is the philosophical road or direction taken in life. Sometimes it is a choice and sometimes an accident. Sometimes staying home is best; sometimes home is stifling. The human desire for fairness, and the need for charity versus retribution are themes that emerge throughout the story, but any moralizing is lightly done.
The main character, Emmett, is similar to Towles’ first famous character, The Gentleman from Moscow. Although Emmett is working class, he shares a moral nobility with aristocratic Count Rostov as they are both honest, responsible, and resourceful. Emmett willingly assumes the care of his young brother when their father dies just like the Count raises five-year-old Sophia when her parents are gone.
Many small seemingly unimportant details converge at the end of this ten-day travel saga. The story is like a well-planned road trip when the unexpected happens.
The Lincoln Highway, built in 1913, was the first transcontinental highway in the United States. It stretched from Times Square in New York City to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Eventually, it was replaced by numbered highways and finally superseded by modern interstates. In the 1990’s, the Lincoln Highway Association was formed to preserve and improve the remaining portions.
I enjoyed the last book I read by Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman, so looked for another. Part of what I liked were the mystical references to ancient Native American beliefs. The Future Home of the Living God does an about face and gives us a fantasy of the future.
Evolution has started to go backwards. Animals – and human babies – show characteristics of earlier times. Government reacts to this by locking up pregnant women and treating them as scientific experiments. Women are hunted by the government and betrayed by their neighbors. They are not allowed to have their children as they see fit. Although written in 2017, this book about reproductive freedom could not have been timelier.
Adopted by idealistic white liberals, the main character has just received a letter from her Ojibwe birth mother inviting her to visit. She is four months pregnant, uneasy and uncertain, but decides to go. Meanwhile people are frightened and panicking about a bizarre evolutionary change that is not part of their world view. Religious institutions, as well as government, seek to assert control, and they focus on the women who are producing, or might produce, children who are different.
It is always fun to discover a different mystery writer, especially when it comes from someone new. The Dry by Jane Harper was lent to me by my husband’s golf buddy. Not a fan of cozy mysteries, he likes something a little stronger, and this one is just right.
Federal Agent Falk returns to his boyhood home near Melbourne for the funeral of his best friend from school and his family, all found dead in an apparent murder/suicide. As Falk returns to his old haunts, the town has not forgotten that, as a teenager, he was connected with the unsolved drowning of a girlfriend. Is there a connection between the two events? Falk finds a friend in the new sheriff and together they resolve these tragic episodes.
This well plotted page turner touches on old loves, reputation in a small town, isolation in the Australian bush, domestic abuse, fraud and gambling, all of which come together to tell a rich and compelling story.
The dry, or the drought, is a character itself. While Harper’s book is not about a “cause,” global warming is ever present. It strikes Falk especially when he is walking near the river he swam in as a teenager. Although he is close, he can’t hear the water and the silence disturbs him. When he finally finds it, the river that used to be over his head is a trickle through hardpan, and the plight of the farming town comes sharply into focus.
Not a book, but an endearing television series, is the Detectorists written by MacKenzie Crook. Metal detecting is the hobby; detector is the tool; detectorist is the person who looks for some wonderful lost remnant of the past.
This is not a series for someone who likes fast action. The show starts slowly, moves slowly, and depends on the perfect timing and subtle British humor of its quirky stars. When one of the company finds something special, his joy in this simple success and the pleasure his friends take in his success is heartwarming. In the final season, there is a nest of Roman gold coins, but the true treasure is the friendship, love, and support the group finds among friends and family. A just-right theme song adds to the charm.
I watched all three seasons on Netflix disks, but some of our local libraries have the series as well.
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“The Future Home of the Living God” certainly sounds like a mirror of today’s attitudes about women’s reproductive rights.
You failed to mention that Future Home of the Living God is too long with an obscure message and an totally unsatisfactory ending. Sorry but I could have skipped it.
I am looking forward to reading THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY. Already had it on my list, but didn’t realize the author was the guy who wrote THE GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW, which–as you know–is one of my favorite books.