The Lincoln Highway: 8. Duchess Summary & Analysis

Duchess drives Emmett’s car across the Lincoln Highway, appreciating the contented purposelessness he sees in the towns that he and Woolly pass. Woolly adjusts the car radio, turning through channels to listen to commercials. After listening to a commercial for canned spaghetti, Duchess tells Woolly a story about Leonello’s, an exclusive Italian restaurant in New York where Duchess’s father Mr. Hewett worked. At Leonello’s, he says, each patron reserves their table for perpetuity and orders dinner without a menu.

The Studebaker starts to slow, and Duchess doesn’t know why until Woolly points out that the car is low on gas. Duchess parks the car and heads towards a closed liquor store, where he plans to either steal some money from the till or steal some liquor to bribe a gas station attendant. Before he goes, Woolly hesitantly asks permission to take his medicine, which Duchess instructed him to ration for the trip. Duchess takes the car’s jack and handle from the trunk, intending to use them to break into the liquor store, but he stops when he sees Charlie Watson’s envelope of $3,000.