The Lincoln Highway

When eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson comes home to Nebraska in June 1954, after serving time at a juvenile work farm for involuntary manslaughter, it is the warden who drives him there. His father has recently died and his mother left long ago, so Emmett plans to pick up Billy, his eight-year-old brother, and start over in California. Then two friends from the work farm, Duchess and Woolly, turn out to have stowed away in the warden's car, with a plan of their own that points the group east to New York City. Amor Towles's third novel covers ten days and is told from several points of view, each chapter belonging to one character.

Bill Gates, who had picked Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow for his 2019 summer list, said he liked this later novel even more and included it in his 2022 summer picks.