Month: June 2021

Amor Towles, the bestselling author of Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow is poised to release his third novel, The Lincoln Highway. Unlike Towles’ previous books—one set in New York City in the 1930s and the other in Russia during the Bolshevik era—the new novel takes place in America in the 1950s.

This fall, Amor Towles is going from Russia to... Nebraska. The acclaimed author — who worked in investing for more than 20 years before pivoting to full-time writing — solidified his position as a household name after the 2016 publication of A Gentleman in Moscow, which followed an aristocrat who is placed on house arrest in a Moscow hotel. EW is exclusively announcing his highly anticipated third novel, and we can promise it's not what you'd expect.

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew.

“Who will save Rostov from the intrusions of state if not the seamstresses, chefs, bartenders and doormen? In the end, Towles’s greatest narrative effect is not the moments of wonder and synchronicity but the generous transformation of these peripheral workers, over the course of decades, into confidants, equals and, finally, friends. With them around, a life sentence in these gilded halls might make Rostov the luckiest man in Russia.” —The New York Times Book Review