Watermark Books brings bestselling author Amor Towles to Wichita

For its first major in-person author event since before the pandemic, Watermark Books is bringing bestselling author Amor Towles to Wichita to talk about his just-released third novel, “The Lincoln Highway.”

Towles’ appearance happens at 6 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 11, at the Crown Uptown Theatre, 3207 E. Douglas. Doors open at 5 p.m. Tickets, available online through Eventbrite, are $32 and include a presigned copy of “The Lincoln Highway.” Copies of Towles’ previous novels will also be for sale.

“The Lincoln Highway,” released Oct. 5, is set in June 1954, with 18-year-old Emmett Watson being driven home to Nebraska by the warden of a juvenile work farm in Salina, Kansas, where he spent 15 months for manslaughter. His father dead, his mother having left the family years ago and the family farm lost in foreclosure, Emmett is going home to reconnect with his 8-year-old brother, Billy, with plans to set out on a journey. It just turns out not to be the one he had planned on since two others from the work farm have stowed away in the car.

Like his previous two novels — “Rules of Civility” (2011) and “A Gentleman in Moscow” (2016), Towles covers a deliberate time frame. “Rules of Civility” covered a year in the life of a 25-year-woman climbing the ladder in 1938 New York. “A Gentleman in Moscow” covered 30 years of a Russian count living under house arrest in the Hotel Metropol, starting in 1922.

Towles said from the start, he had intended to set this novel to cover just 10 days. What he didn’t initially intend was telling the journey from eight different viewpoints. As he developed the book, he realized other characters — not just Emmett and Duchess, the stowaway who hijacks Emmett’s road trip — needed to be heard. Like the title of his second novel, the title of his third novel gives away the location of the story, in this case, America’s first transcontinental highway for autos.

“I spend a lot of time designing my books,” Towles said. “Over time, I have taken a notion, expanded it, then obsessed about it and then eventually filled notebooks with sort of the imagery of that book, what are the settings, who are the people, what are the events and why, until eventually I have a detailed outline. And that’s at the end of a multiyear process of imagining the book in as much detail as I can. And then I’ll start chapter one. Even then it takes me a couple of years, maybe a year and a half to write the first draft. It might take me another year of revision or two years’ revision.”

While he eschewed the word research, Towles said in the interview for this article that he does spend time “tinkering” to ensure he’s capturing details and to enhance the book once he’s written the first draft.

For example, Towles said, after completing the first draft for “The Lincoln Highway,” he looked up the front pages of The New York Times covering the same 10 days that his book does to get a sense of what was of national importance and on the minds of Americans at that time. Stories of a scheduled national simulation of an atomic attack on the U.S. reiterated that the threat of nuclear attacks had been an important part of the 1950s.

As he did with “A Gentleman in Moscow,” it wasn’t until after Towles had written the first draft of “The Lincoln Highway” that he visited the actual locale of his book. While he has visited various places in the Midwest, he’d not traveled the Lincoln Highway. Dedicated in 1913 to promote the concept of cross-country and highway travel, the Lincoln Highway stretches 3,000 miles from Lincoln Park in San Francisco to Times Square in New York City. Numerous other state and federal highways have since replaced it but historic sections remain.

“It certainly was smaller than I imagined it,” Towles said of the highway that is actually a two-lane road in some places. “Driving it was a reminder that in 1910 a highway just meant a narrow, paved road.”

He also collected vintage postcards from towns along the highway, according to a recent “Time” article, which relates to the character Billy finding postcards his mother had sent after she’d left the family.

Writing has always been a part of the 56-year-old Towles’ life, starting from the time he was in first grade, he has said. After graduating from Yale, Towles earned a Master of Arts in English degree from Stanford University. However, he followed his father, a banker originally from St. Louis, into the financial field, becoming a Wall Street investment professional for 20 years. After the success of “Rules of Civility,” he became a full-time author.

Both New York Times bestsellers and heralded by various publications — and readers — as best books in the year they published, “Rules of Civility” and “A Gentleman from Moscow” have collectively sold more than four million copies and have been translated into more than 30 languages. “The Lincoln Highway” has been achieving high praise and reviews, as well, with several reviewers playing off the book’s name: a “real joy ride” (NPR.org), “a wild ride through Americana” (Buzzfeed), a rollicking cross-country adventure” (“Time”).

One unintended outcome of Towles’ novels has been an interest in recipes of particular dishes mentioned in his books. For “Rules of Civility,” it was eggs prepared by narrator Katey Kontent, referred to as Closed Kitchen Eggs on recipe sites. For “A Gentleman in Moscow,” it was a Latvian stew that the count observed a young man ordering on his first date. The recipe for the stew — a combination of pork, onions, carrots, apricots, prunes, tomato paste and water — comes from Towles’ own kitchen. (The recipe can be found at bookclubcookbook.com/gentleman-moscow-latvian-stew-recipe-author-amor-towles/.)

Another dish from Towles’ kitchen is included in “The Lincoln Highway,” this time a fettucine dish that the character Duchess makes for the characters Emmett, Woolly, Billy and Sally on their last night together. Here’s the recipe: bookclubcookbook.com/amor-towles-fettucine-mio-amore/ if you’re looking to settle down with a pasta dish and read Towles’ latest work.

An Evening with Amor Towles

What: Watermark Books’ first major in-person author event since the pandemic with bestselling author Amor Towles who will talk about his just-released third novel “The Lincoln Highway”

When: 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 11; doors open at 5 p.m.

Where: Crown Uptown Theatre, 3207 E. Douglas

Admission: $32, ticket includes a presigned copy of “The Lincoln Highway.” Available at www.eventbrite.com/e/bestselling-author-amor-towles-at-the-crown-uptown-tickets-165772535115

More info: watermarkbooks.com/event/evening-amor-towles