If you liked
Books like The Lincoln Highway
by Amor Towles
The Lincoln Highway sends two brothers and a pair of escaped reform-school boys on a wrong-way road trip across 1950s America, told in Amor Towles's warm, literate, deeply structured style. If you want more charming, big-hearted literary fiction with real craft, read on.
The shortlist
What to read next
A Gentleman in Moscowby Amor Towles
“A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles 2016 review. Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced in 1922 to lifelong house arrest at the Hotel Metropol. Towles's second novel and one of the most consistently recommended contemporary American literary commercial titles of the past decade.”
Rules of Civilityby Amor Towles
“Rules of Civility by Amor Towles 2011 review. A working-class Manhattan secretary navigates 1938 New York society. Towles's debut and the literary commercial breakthrough before A Gentleman in Moscow.”
Table for Twoby Amor Towles
“Table for Two by Amor Towles 2024 review. Six New York stories and the Eve in Hollywood novella that continues Rules of Civility into 1938 Los Angeles. Towles's first short-fiction collection.”
The Heart's Invisible Furiesby John Boyne
“The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne 2017 review. Cyril Avery's life across seven decades - adopted out of 1945 Catholic Cork, navigating the closeted gay Ireland of the 1960s through the 2010s. Boyne's literary commercial masterwork.”
Cutting for Stoneby Abraham Verghese
“Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese 2009 review. Twin brothers are born in 1954 Addis Ababa to a secret affair between a nun and a surgeon. Verghese's first major novel and one of the canonical contemporary American literary novels of medicine.”
Demon Copperheadby Barbara Kingsolver
“Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 2022 review. A Dickensian retelling of David Copperfield in the opioid-crisis Appalachia of the 1990s and 2000s. Pulitzer Prize and Women's Prize 2023 and Kingsolver's defining late-career novel.”
FAQ
Common questions about The Lincoln Highway read-alikes
- I want more Amor Towles.
- A Gentleman in Moscow is the one to read next, his beloved novel of a count under house arrest in a grand hotel, and for most readers his best. Rules of Civility and Table for Two round out the catalog and share the same wit and polish.
- I want another big American journey.
- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver is a modern Appalachian odyssey, a David Copperfield retelling through the opioid crisis, and it won the Pulitzer. It is grittier than Towles but shares the picaresque, one-boy-against-the-country structure.
- I want the warm, decades-spanning novel.
- The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne and Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese both follow characters across long, eventful lives with humor and heartbreak. Either gives the generous sweep that makes Towles so satisfying.
- I want the exact tone of Towles's charm.
- A Gentleman in Moscow again is the closest tonal match in the whole catalog: erudite, gentle, quietly optimistic. If The Lincoln Highway's voice was the draw, that is where to go.
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